


Aspiring Coalition of Evil

by Blizzard96



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: A.C.E are villains but they're terrible at it, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-12 22:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 47,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13556508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizzard96/pseuds/Blizzard96
Summary: The boys start out as superheroes, but quickly realize that playing nice won't pay the rent. The obvious solution? Join the dark side with all its added bonuses. Now if only they could figure out how to be villains without actually hurting anyone.





	1. To Be A Hero(?)

“Look, I know we say that the public’s safety and well-being are payment enough, but maybe we should start asking for some kind of compensation,” Byeongkwan said, opening the tiny fridge, only to grimace at the lack of food. There were three cups of applesauce, a half gone gallon of milk, a pack of bologna, and six eggs.

“I agree,” Yuchan said, frowning at their equally bare cupboards that were stacked with ramen and little else. He turned to glance around at the tiny apartment, clearly built for one or two people at most, that all five of them were currently crammed into. There were only two bedrooms, a small common area, a bathroom and a small kitchen (if it could really be called that). Their furniture in the common area was a mix and match assemblage of articles rescued from various yard sales and pieces from that one online IKEA sale.

Sehyoon looked up from his phone from his position on their lumpy couch. “There’s an article already about us. It’s on a current events blog.”

“What are they saying?” Byeongkwan asked, pulling out a container of applesauce in defeat.

“The woman we saved from a mugging seemed grateful, but the police force are less than impressed at how we handled her attackers,” Sehyoon relayed.

“Place your bets now,” Byeongkwan said, digging around in the silverware drawer for a clean spoon. He quickly realized that all their spoons were in the overflowing pile of dirty dishes in the sink. “Are they calling us vigilantes, dangers to society, or dumb punks?” A cloud passed over Byeongkwan’s face as he regarded his spoon predicament. Eventually, he just peeled off the foil lid and used it as a makeshift scoop to shovel applesauce into his mouth.

“I vote for dangers to society,” Yuchan said, raising a hand. “We’ve gotten that a lot.”

“Who was the writer?” Jun asked, walking out of the bathroom and wiping his still damp hands on his jeans.

“The guy from the papers. He’s got a TV show or something too?” Sehyoon answered, scrolling back up the article.

“Definitely ‘dangers to society’ then,” Jun said with a hum. “That’s like his signature.”

“What’s this about?” Donghun emerged from his bedroom, laptop in hand.

“Vigilantes, dangers to society or dumb punks,” Byeongkwan replied. “The author’s that guy with the TV show.”

Donghun frowned. “He’s used ‘dangers to society’ too often. I think he’ll shake it up with ‘dumb punks’ this time.”

“And the answer is?” Byeongkwan said, turning back to Sehyoon. Yuchan drummed on the counter dramatically for a build up.

“Dumb punks,” Sehyoon read off. “He says it three times.”

“Hah!” Donghun said, looking at the others smugly as he made his way to the one armchair they had in the common room. The chair creaked alarmingly, but luckily didn’t break. Donghun immediately started typing away on the device, most likely looking for any other articles they might have been mentioned in.

“Move over,” Jun ordered, walking over to the couch. Sehyoon grinned and proceeded to stretch out even more on the cushions. “Donghun!” Jun whined.

“What?” Donghun asked, not even looking up from his laptop.

“Make Sehyoon move!”

“I’m a superhero, not a miracle worker,” Donghun replied, “You move him." Jun eventually ended up shoving at Sehyoon’s legs until there was just enough space for him to sit down, though he was squished against the armrest.

“I’m going to go get the mail,” Yuchan announced finally, pushing away from where he’d been leaning against the wall. “Our bills should be coming in today.” He was met by collective groans from the rest of the group.

“What did we say about using the ‘b-word’ in this apartment?” Byeongkwan admonished.

Yuchan rolled his eyes and grabbed the keys from a hook by the door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” The door swung behind him with a click.

Byeongkwan turned to Donghun. “How do our funds look for this month?”

Donghun snorted. “How do you feel about stripping for cash?”

“No one is stripping for cash,” Jun said immediately, screwing up his face in disgust.

“Just because you don’t have the thighs to pull it off,” Byeongkwan began, ignoring Jun’s squawk of protest.

“But seriously,” Sehyoon cut in, getting the others’ attention. “How is it that we spend our free time saving the city, but we still can’t manage to cover our electricity bill?”

Donghun shrugged. “I mean we have to pay for costume repairs and restocking all our weapons and things that get damaged.”

Byeongkwan huffed, dumping his now empty applesauce cup in the trashcan. “I bet villains don’t have this problem. When was the last time you heard about ONF struggling to keep the lights on?”

“To be fair,” Jun said, “They all have electricity based powers. That’s kind of their thing.”

“Still!” Byeongkwan pressed. “It’s not fair that we have to have side jobs in coffee shops and grocery stores while they can cover all their bills for a year with one successful heist!”

“I mean they’ll still get considerable jail time if they’re ever caught, but I get where you’re coming from,” Donghun said. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, no doubt checking their bank accounts. If Byeongkwan recalled correctly, he had about enough for dinner and a movie in there (provided the movie wasn’t one of those fancy 3D kinds).

“I’m back!” Yuchan’s muffled voice came through the door. It swung open to admit him with a stack of bills in his right hand. He locked the door behind him and hung up the keys. “Who wants the honors?”

“I did it last month,” Donghun said, raising his hands up.

Byeongkwan turned to Jun. “Aren’t you supposed to be the leader or whatever?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be able to see the future?” Jun shot back, narrowing his eyes. “You tell me what our bills are.”

“You know it gives me a headache if I use it too often!” Byeongkwan said, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out like a five year old.

“I’ll open it, oh my god,” Yuchan said, cutting off their argument. He made a face at the bills before opening one of them. “Electricity bill is about the same,” he reported, handing the bill to Jun, who took it as though it were a live bomb. Given that Jun had actually handled live bombs, he would probably rather be in that situation.

Chan opened the water bill next and blinked. “Um, so the water bill is a little higher than last month,” he reported with a wince.

“How much higher is ‘a little higher’?” Donghun asked, rubbing his temples in a futile attempt to ward off the oncoming headache. 

“Like… fifty bucks higher?” Yuchan said, grimacing.

“WHO USED-?” Donghun’s voice boomed out, the shockwaves blowing back Yuchan’s hair before Jun rushed forward to cover Donghun’s mouth before the sound waves grew to the point where they punched a hole in the wall. Donghun gave Jun a murderous look, but visibly took a deep breath to calm himself back down. In a barely restrained voice he asked, “Who used more water this month?”

Sehyoon raised his hand with a vaguely sheepish look. “I thought brushing my teeth in the shower would save water, but it might have just made my shower longer.”

“I knew I saw toothpaste in the drain,” Jun muttered. Donghun gave the leader a look and Jun’s jaw snapped shut quickly.

“At least rent’s the normal rate,” Yuchan offered, passing Donghun the last bill.

“Are we going to be able to pay it all?” Sehyoon asked, looking nervous.

Donghun sighed. “Maybe. I’ll ask for some extra shifts at the coffee shop.”

“I can get another part-time job,” Sehyoon offered. “The extra charges are my fault anyway.”

Donghun shook his head. “You have to monitor the police radio while the rest of us are at work.”

“Also,” Yuchan began, rocking back on his heels, “there’s some more bad news.”

Donghun’s head snapped up. “What?” he asked, voice dangerously calm. 

Yuchan gulped and his eyes flickered to Byeongkwan. The other boy just made a face, evidently not able to see what Donghun’s reaction would be. “You know how we were fighting that one new villain group last week?”

“Oh yeah, what was their name?” Sehyoon asked, screwing up his face.

“The Boyz,” Byeongkwan said. “There’s like twelve of them.”

“I still think one of them was able to clone himself because I swear I fought like thirty of them,” Sehyoon said.

“Anyway,” Yuchan cut in, “One of them apparently had an acid attack, and it’s been dissolving the bottom of our car for the past week. There’s a hole right in the floor of the backseat big enough to stick your legs through.” Donghun’s face went completely blank, and he set his laptop down on the tiny coffee table carefully.

“Um, you okay Hun?” Jun asked timidly. Donghun leaned forward to bury his face in his hands before letting out a muffled groan that reverberated through the whole apartment, rattling the lights on the walls. Jun patted his back hesitantly.

“What should we do?” Sehyoon asked, looking to Jun.

The leader bit his lip. “The car is our top priority right now. We can’t get to our jobs without it, not to mention any heroic activities.”

“We don’t have the money for a new car,” Byeongkwan said. 

“Maybe we can look online?” Jun tried.

“We still won’t have the money for any of the cars on there,” Sehyoon muttered. “We eat ramen almost every day just to keep the water running.”

“What if we replace the bottom?” Jun tried. “Don’t you know someone who can manipulate metal, Yuchan?”

Yuchan shook his head apologetically. “He’s out of town for the next month with his family. I can ask him when he gets back, but we’ll have to find another source of transportation until then.”

Donghun sat up suddenly, startling Jun. “That’s it,” he said. “I’ve had it.”

“What?” Jun asked, eyebrows shooting up.

“I’m tired of eating ramen, working at a crappy coffee shop, and people twisting all our actions and words in the papers to make us look like the bad guys,” Donghun said, scowling.

“What are you saying?” Jun asked hesitantly.

Donghun leveled Jun with a look, an odd gleam in his eye. “I’m saying, if they’re going to call us ‘dangers to society’ anyway, shouldn’t we at least get some of the perks that come with being villains?”

Jun blinked. “What?” He looked around to the others hoping that one of them would offer a reasonable counter argument. He was sorely disappointed.

“I mean, it would solve our money issue,” Sehyoon offered thoughtfully. “Do you know how much money NCT is sitting on? Enough to recruit new members every few months.”

“And it always looks like ONF is having fun before we show up to stop their heists,” Yuchan said, smiling.

“We are not robbing a bank!” Jun protested desperately.

“Now there’s an idea,” Byeongkwan mused, looking like he was seriously considering the preparations necessary to pull it off.

“We could just rob the really rich people who could afford to lose a few thousand,” Donghun offered, as if that made it better. “We could even just break into their houses while they’re off on vacation so that we don’t put anyone in danger.”

“That’s illegal!” Jun protested.

“To be fair, half of what we do as vigilantes is also illegal,” Sehyoon argued. He shrugged when Jun shot him a dirty look. “What? I’m right.”

“He is,” Donghun said, nodding. “Now we’ll just get paid for it.”

“We can still stop bad guys from hurting people,” Yuchan said. “We’ll make a villain code or something!”

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan agreed. “Just because we’re villains doesn’t mean we have to be dicks about it.”

“I can’t believe this,” Jun said, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are we really going to become villains just to pay the bills?”

“Yes,” Donghun replied bluntly, smashing Jun’s last scrap of common sense to shreds.

“So are you in or what?” Byeongkwan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

There was a pause as they waited for Jun’s final decision. Eventually Jun threw up his arms in defeat. “Fine. The villains always have better outfits anyway.”


	2. Fast (and Furious) Food

“We might be going about this the wrong way,” Donghun said, frowning as he surveyed the rest of the group sprawled out around the living room. Each person was tapping away at some kind of electronic device, and  it looked like moving was the last thing on any of their minds.

“What do you mean?” Yuchan asked, looking up from his phone.

Donghun ran a hand through his hair. “We decided to be villains days ago. Has anyone done anything… evil lately?”

“I stole 5000 won from the convenience store today!” Jun announced excitedly.

“The cashier gave you the wrong amount of change,” Byeongkwan deadpanned. “And you felt so bad afterwards that you went back and returned the money.”

Jun pouted. “Well yeah, I didn’t want to get the worker in trouble.”

Donghun sighed, “That wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Something like that won’t pay our bills, and we really need to pull something off if we want to survive.”

“Like a bank heist?” Sehyoon asked, scrunching up his face. 

“I don’t think we’re ready for that level of crime yet,” Jun said. “We definitely don’t have time to plan one before we have to pay our bills.”

“We could try stealing an ATM then,” Yuchan suggested.

“How would we carry it?” Byeongkwan asked.

Yuchan frowned. “I think someone I know has a forklift.”

“And then we make our speedy escape at ten miles an hour?” Byeongkwan snorted.

“It’s what we have to work with!” Yuchan said, holding up his hands in frustration.

“We could rob a jewelry store,” Sehyoon said, getting the group’s attention. “There’s a bunch of tiny ones we could probably break into at night around here. Plus it would be a good way to get back at them for getting their television commercials stuck in my head.” He tapped around on his tablet before pulling up a digital map of all the nearby jewelry stores. There were many of them in the city, close enough to pull off a small heist.

There was a brief silence. “You know,” Jun began, “That’s not the worst idea. It’s fairly small scale. I doubt any high profile hero teams would show up to that.”

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan nodded. “That was the kind of thing that we used to get called in on.”

Donghun tilted his head to the side. “We’d have to work out a lot of the details though. We don’t even have a getaway car.”

“I know someone with a car,” Byeongkwan said, raising his hand. “I mean, we might owe them a favor, but I could probably get it for a night or two.”

“What kind of favor?” Donghun asked, narrowing his eyes.

Byeongkwan winced. “Well, he owns a burger joint…” he said hesitantly.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Jun said, doubt creeping into his voice.

“We wouldn’t have to make the food!” Byeongkwan assured them all quickly. He then grimaced. “We might have to advertise for his place though. He said a few of his employees called in sick unexpectedly.”

“What, like handing out fliers for the place?” Yuchan asked. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Well…”

 

* * *

 

“I’m dying,” Jun said, trying to stay in the small amount of shade from the awning over the burger joint as he slowly suffocated to death inside the costume. He cursed the fact that the french fry costume had no face holes and only a mesh like screen that allowed him to see the outside world. The costume had to be around a hundred or so degrees and Jun was half convinced he was going to drown in his own sweat. What a way to go. Tell his parents he loved them.

“You’re dying?” Donghun hissed from his own hamburger costume. “I’m being cooked alive!” He smacked Jun with his free hand that was not currently holding a stack of fliers. “My god I’m going to kill Byeongkwan when this is over,” he vowed.

“We better be getting a sports car for this,” Jun agreed. Speaking of the devil, Byeongkwan appeared in front of the two of them holding his own stack of fliers and irritatingly costumeless.

“How are the two of you holding up?” Byeongkwan asked.

“Since you’re the one who can see the future, why don’t you tell me how I’m going to kill you and save us both some time,” Donghun suggested as he loomed as menacingly as a hamburger could.

“Seriously, why are we doing this again?” Jun whined.

“To get a car,” Byeongkwan sighed, edging away from the murderous intent the hamburger was projecting.

“No, I mean why are _we_ the ones doing this,” Jun asked, gesturing as best he could to the french fry outfit.

“You were tall enough for the costumes,” Byeongkwan said with a shrug.

“Yuchan’s taller,” Jun countered.

“Which is why he’s being a milkshake over there,” Byeongkwan flapped an arm behind him.

“Wait, really?” Jun asked. “I can’t see anything with this costume.”

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan confirmed, turning around, “Wait, he fell over again.” Byeongkwan grimaced as he watched Sehyoon attempt to haul the milkshake to its feet. The milkshake floundered a bit on unsteady legs before running into a bench on the sidewalk and flopping over it with a scream.

“Just tell me how much longer we have to do this,” Donghun said exasperatedly. 

Byeongkwan checked his phone. “Like half an hour?”

“Thank god,” Jun muttered in relief. “And then we get the car?”

“Promise,” Byeongkwan said. “JinJin confirmed that we could use his car for this weekend.”

“By the way, what kind of car is it?” Jun asked out of curiosity.

“Uh, yeah, about that,” Byeongkwan muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Byeongkwan,” Donghun warned. “I am in seventy five degree weather dressed as a hamburger. Please tell me I am not doing this for nothing.”

“It’s not my fault!” Byeongkwan rushed to explain, “He did have a good car for a getaway it’s just… he’s loaning it to his sister for a while. He has another car though.”

“What kind of car?”

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe I suffered as a container of french fries for three hours just so we could drive a minivan to our first heist,” Jun said, burying his face in his hands. They were all standing in the parking garage around the offending vehicle with bags filled with supplies.

“At least it’s got space?” Yuchan offered, trying to stay optimistic.

“People probably wouldn’t suspect it either,” Sehyoon offered.

“Yeah, because no one drives a minivan to a heist!” Jun groaned.

“What’s done is done,” Byeongkwan said with a shrug.

“Don’t you start,” Donghun muttered, opening the sliding door to the minivan. “You’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Byeongkwan replied, sounding offended. “Do any of _you_ have people you can call about transportation?”

“Guys, it’s fine,” Yuchan broke in. “It’s not that bad. It’s even a black car! That’s good, right?”

Sehyoon nodded. “Black cars are the most common kind.”

“Right well, we should start loading the thing up then,” Donghun muttered, hopping in the backseat and pushing down the extra row of seats they wouldn’t need. Jun lifted the trunk up and began passing Donghun bags full of tools and empty carrying cases for the jewelry. Byeongkwan and Sehyoon hopped in the front seats to hook up the police radio along with a GPS and various communication devices and trackers.

“You know,” Yuchan began, handing Jun a pair of wire cutters, though he wasn’t sure what exactly they’d need them for. “We don’t have villain names yet.”

“Is that really important?” Donghun asked from the backseat.

“Of course it is!” Byeongkwan exclaimed. “What kind of group doesn’t have cool code names?”

“True,” Donghun replied, conceding the point. “Sehyoon, can you get me the pliers?”

Sehyoon waved a hand in the pliers direction without looking up from the radio he was hooking to the console. The tool shot out from the duffel bag it had been stored in into Donghun’s waiting hand. “Thanks.”

“But anyway, it’s our chance to rebrand from our hero image,” Byeongkwan continued.

“So what’s everyone’s names gonna be?” Yuchan asked, smoothing some duct tape over the license plate number on the bumper.

“I’ll be Jason,” Byeongkwan announced.

“What?” Donghun asked, turning around in the backseat to give the other boy a confused look.

“It’s a good name!” Byeongkwan insisted.

“Like the guy from Halloween?” Yuchan asked, frowning. “Are you going to wear a hockey mask?”

“I could,” Byeongkwan said thoughtfully. “We need to get masks by the way.”

“Way ahead of you,” Sehyoon said. He jumped out of the passenger seat where he’d been working on the radio to retreat to a corner of the parking garage. He was back in a minute with a stack of cardboard boxes with some holes punched in the front.

“You want us all to wear boxes?” Donghun deadpanned.

Sehyoon nodded. “It’s all we have in here unless you ran to the Halloween store while I wasn’t looking, which I doubt seeing as it’s spring.”

Donghun threw his hands up. “Fine. Whatever.”

“We can find some good masks on Amazon later,” Jun said, taking the boxes from Sehyoon and stacking them in the back.

“And I want my villain name to be Wow,” Sehyoon said, climbing back into the front seat to finish fiddling with the radio.

“Wow?” Donghun inquired. “Why?”

Sehyoon shrugged. “I just like it.”

“Whatever,” Donghun sighed, accepting that there was no way they would ever be regarded as serious villains at this rate. Maybe that was for the best. The last thing they needed was high profile heroes coming after them.

“What about you, Jun?” Yuchan asked.

Jun considered it for a minute. “I kind of like Ocean.”

“No,” Byeongkwan shot him down immediately.

“Why not?” Jun whined. “Sehyoon gets to be Wow!” The back and forth banter began with Byeongkwan insisting that he refused to work with a villain named Ocean. Donghun felt a throbbing pain growing behind his eyes.

“EVERYONE STOP!” Donghun snapped, the force of his voice rattling all their supplies and shaking the nearby cars. He glared around the minivan. “No one’s getting villain names now.”

Byeongkwan crossed his arms. “If I don’t get to be called Jason, I’m out.”

“And I still like Wow,” Sehyoon agreed.

Donghun glared, but the precognitive boy was unfazed. “Fine. Whatever. Byeongkwan and Sehyoon can have their names, but no one else is getting code names. Got it?” He narrowed his eyes at Jun and Yuchan, daring them to argue. They didn’t. Thirty minutes later, the minivan was outfitted with all the devices and supplies they could reasonably fit into it without making severe alterations to the car’s interior.

“It’ll have to do,” Jun sighed. “Who’s driving?”

“I am,” Byeongkwan announced. “I have to monitor the radio and keep a lookout for anyone coming in the future anyway.”

Donghun nodded. “Everyone else is going in. I’m not sure what kind of alarm system they’ll have, so Sehyoon you’ll have to open the locks magnetically. Hopefully that won’t set off their system, but be ready to disable any alarms just in case.” Sehyoon nodded.

“Yuchan, Jun and I will grab what we can. Is everyone clear?” Donghun asked.

“Yessir!” Yuchan chirped.

“Shotgun!” Sehyoon called, hopping in the passenger seat while smugly ignoring Jun and Yuchan’s protests.

“No fair!” Yuchan pouted. Donghun rolled his eyes and pushed the leader and the youngest toward the backseats.

“Seatbelts!” Jun ordered.

“Is that a command?” Byeongkwan snorted.

“Hey, Byeongkwan?” Jun said.

“Yeah?”

“ ** _Shut up_** ,” Jun said, giving the other a smug smile as Byeongkwan’s mouth snapped shut of its own accord. “That was a command.” Byeongkwan blinked in surprise before narrowing his eyes and flipping Jun off with his hand. Donghun lightly smacked Jun on the back of the head.

“Ow!” Jun exclaimed.

“Lift the order,” Donghun sighed. “He has to be able to talk to us.” Jun grumbled something about no one respecting him as the leader, but Byeongkwan’s jaw eventually unclenched.

“We’re off to a great start,” Sehyoon remarked, watching Byeongkwan glare at Jun in the rearview mirror as he backed the car out of the parking spot.

“Why didn’t I just study business?” Donghun muttered as he rubbed his temples. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Even worse than that time you got drunk and then went for karaoke?” Yuchan asked. Donghun didn’t dignify that with a response.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! In case anyone's wondering what happened at karaoke, Donghun brought the house down. Literally.


	3. The Best Plan Ever (Trademark Pending)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Thanks for reading and for all your comments! I just wanted to let you all know that if you do ask questions in the comments, I'll answer them in the notes at the beginning of the next chapter. So, to address some confusion, here's a list of all their abilities:
> 
> Jun- Able to command other people, though he cannot affect their mental state (ex. ordering someone to forget something), the others may refer to it as his "leader voice"  
> Donghun- Able to turn his voice into sonic waves  
> Sehyoon- Ability to control metal objects magnetically  
> Byeongkwan- Able to see the future  
> Yuchan- ????
> 
> And with that, here's the next chapter!

“Okay, everyone got their radios?” Jun asked, glancing around the van. The other members nodded.

Byeongkwan held up his radio. “I’ll let you all know if I see anything incoming. That should give us about a ten minute warning. Also, even though we’ll have a head start, this car is not built for speed, so the faster you’re out the better.”

As soon as Byeongkwan parked the minivan in an alley near the jewelry store, the other four members slipped out the side of the van and ran around to the back where all their supplies were. Jun lifted the trunk up and shone a flashlight on all their gear, handing out various devices to the others.

“Are we really doing boxes?” Donghun sighed as Jun handed him one.

“Yes,” Sehyoon replied, voice slightly muffled by the cardboard box already over his head. “I didn’t order five large, vaguely square shaped things off of Amazon for nothing.” Donghun rolled his eyes at that, but still put the box over his head.

“Hang on,” Jun said, frowning, “Are you telling me you bought five things on Amazon, and none of them were masks?” Sehyoon just shrugged in reply.

“It’s kind of hard to see,” Yuchan said, the holes of the box slipping around over his eyes.

“Yeah, the first order of business after this is to actually get some decent masks,” Donghun grumbled. 

“Let’s go,” Jun said, stopping any more possible arguments that might spring up before they even got in the building. They all set out with their bags and gear to the front of the store, Donghun watching behind them as Sehyoon used his abilities to trip the pins in the door’s lock. 

The handle turned without any alarms going off, which they all hoped was a good sign. They slipped in silently, immediately fanning out throughout the jewelry store to look through all the cases as best they could while also silently marking where all the visible cameras were. Yuchan dug through one of the duffles for a sheet of smiley face stickers. He then methodically worked his way around the room, slapping the stickers over the lenses of the security cameras while Sehyoon got to business on opening all the display cases.

“You know they probably don’t keep all the really expensive stuff out in the open like this, right?” Sehyoon whispered to their leader, unlocking one of the cases with a flick of his fingers.

“Yeah,” Jun confirmed, “But we just need enough to pay the rent for right now. If we were really looking for a haul, we’d have to break into those safety deposit boxes in a bank or something.”

“Or break into a really rich person’s house,” Yuchan said, returning from his task. He tilted his head in consideration before he stuck another one of his stickers right on the lock of the display cases.

“What are you doing?” Donghun hissed.

“Well, maybe they’ll think the stickers are some kind of device that we used to open the cases,” Yuchan replied. “Wouldn’t that be funny?”

Donghun was interrupted from replying as Sehyoon opened the last case. “Alright,” Sehyoon said. “Grab what you can.” They barely spoke as they all began grabbing the jewelry out of the cases and stuffing them in duffel bags without a second thought.

“You’d think this store would have more security on this stuff with so many villains out these days,” Yuchan remarked, using his arm to sweep an entire case of watches into a duffel bag.

“Maybe they didn’t think any villain would have a magnetic ability?” Jun said.

Sehyoon scoffed. “Short-sighted on their part.”

All of their walkie talkies crackled at once. “Ten minutes!” Byeongkwan called through their radios. “Heroes incoming!”

Jun swore. “Grab your bags, we’re going now!”

“Who is it?” Donghun asked into his radio as he slung a bag over his shoulder.

“Golden Child,” Byeongkwan’s garbled voice answered.

“It’s another big group,” Sehyoon muttered. “Why are all these groups so big these days?”

“And how did they even know we were here?” Yuchan asked. “There’s no way anyone was actually watching the cameras for a jewelry store this small at night!”

“Wonder later, we gotta go!” Jun said, herding the others out the front door and toward the back alley. They loaded up the back of the van quickly, the four members chucking their box masks after them soon after. 

“Seriously, we have to get a new getaway car,” Donghun huffed waiting for the automatic side door to slide open at a very slow rate. They jumped in quickly, shutting the door behind themselves. Sehyoon turned to the driver’s seat to see the precog staring forward without actually seeing anything, a tell tale sign he was looking into the future. He shook Byeongkwan’s arm, jolting the other out of his trance. “Byeongkwan, go!” 

Byeongkwan shook his head briefly. “That’s Jason to you!” he said before turning the key and starting the engine. He stomped on the gas and they tore out of the alley and onto the empty dark streets. “They’ll be at the store soon. And then they’ll come after us.” The silence was tense as the speedometer ticked slowly upward as Byeongkwan pushed the car to its limits.

“Do they have a good car?” Sehyoon asked, peering into a side mirror nervously.

“Anyone has a better car than the one we’re currently driving,” Donghun muttered darkly. There was a thud as something very heavy landed on the hood of their car.

“Oh my god!” Yuchan yelled as the car jolted to a sudden stop, wheels squealing. “Did we hit someone?!”

“More like we got hit by someone,” Sehyoon muttered, making eye contact with a kid who had just landed on their car. 

“Get him off! Get him off!” Byeongkwan yelled, accidentally starting up the windshield wipers, which made the kid jerk back in surprise. Sehyoon flailed for a minute in the passenger’s seat before he waved a hand, gripping onto all the metal devices the kid had on his body and flung the kid from their vehicle as gently as he could manage.

“They’re already here?!” Jun asked. A thud on the side of their minivan was enough of an answer.

“Goddammit,” Donghun muttered. The car lurched, and though Byeongkwan instinctively hit the gas, they weren’t moving forward. Suddenly, the van tilted dangerously to the left side, like it was being lifted up by some force. “Jun!”

“On it!” Jun said, barely managing to steady himself on the unstable floor and slide open the side door. He looked down to see there was, in fact, some kid lifting up the side of their car. He sighed internally, noting that the kid didn’t even look old enough to be a legal adult. Where were this kid’s parent’s? “Hey,” he said, getting the boy’s attention.

“Ready to give up?” The kid grunted, hoisting their van a little higher.

Jun gripped the sides of the door so he wouldn’t be thrown backward. “ ** _Drop it_** ,” he ordered. The kid’s eyes widened as he immediately let go of the car, the minivan thudding back to the pavement.

“Ow!” Yuchan yelped, evidently having hit his head while there were similar groans of pain from the other three members.

Jun looked back at the kid, standing frozen on the sidewalk with a vaguely terrified look on his face. Jun felt a little guilty for using his powers like this, but hey they were villains, kind of. “ ** _Scram._** ” The kid turned around jerkily and ran off. Jun knew the kid would keep running until he was out of Jun’s range, which was pretty considerable. Apparently that was two down, since the one Sehyoon had flung off the car hadn’t made a reappearance (Jun imagined Sehyoon had magnetized all the kid’s gear to the point where he’d be stuck to the nearest metal object).

“Go!” Donghun cried, regaining his bearings as soon as Jun had closed the door. “There’s like eight more of these kids!” The minivan’s wheels screeched as they tore off again.

“They’re on our tail!” Yuchan reported, looking out the back of the car to see the approaching headlights of another car.

“I wonder how they all fit in one car,” Sehyoon noted absently. “Is it like a school bus?”

“Not the time,” Byeongkwan muttered, taking one corner particularly fast and nearly capsizing the whole thing.

“Easy!” Donghun shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls of the car and making Jun cover his ears from where he was sitting next to him. Byeongkwan’s efforts were in vain, however, because the other car soon reappeared in their mirrors. 

“Yuchan, throw ‘em off!” Byeongkwan yelled, pressing a button to open up the trunk. 

“You do realize it’s night time, right?” Yuchan asked, swinging the trunk up anyway. “It won’t last very long!”

“We only need a few minutes!” Byeongkwan assured him. Yuchan sighed and looked out the back to see the heroes’ car approaching and braced himself as best he could before raising his hands, palms out.

“Don’t look!” Yuchan warned, and suddenly there was a flash of blinding light, as if a miniature sun had suddenly taken up residence in the back seat. The light was gone all too soon, and Yuchan watched as the other car swerved off to a shoulder of the road, presumably blinded by the sudden light. Byeongkwan didn’t let up on the gas though, and Yuchan struggled to slam the back of the van shut and not fall out.

When he finally settled back in his seat, everyone in the van was sweating and breathing hard. Byeongkwan was checking the mirrors every few seconds, but it didn’t look the heroes were reappearing. As the minutes ticked by, he slowly unclenched his fingers from the steering wheel. The car was brought back to a more manageable pace.

“Did…did we get away then?” Yuchan wondered, a grin breaking out over his face. The other members glanced at each other before they all burst out laughing at the same time. Sehyoon hunched over in his seat, shoulders shaking and Jun laughed so hard he felt tears forming.

“Oh my god,” Donghun muttered, trying to swallow down his laughter. “We’re successful villains!”

 

* * *

 

“I swear I’ve seen them before,” Jangjun insisted as Daeyeol continued to try and pry Tag off the mailbox. After they recovered from being blinded, they’d retraced their path to go after their two members that had gone ahead and then went missing. Jangjun wasn’t sure what kind of device or person the villains had used to create that light, but he’d been blinking black spots out of his vision for the past twenty minutes. 

They’d seen Tag stuck to a metal mailbox after driving back for a few minutes, the boy trying futilely to lift up his arm to get to his radio. Somehow, one the burglars they had been chasing had magnetized all of the hooks and buckles on Tag’s outfit and gear so that he was hopelessly stuck. They would’ve needed Donghyun’s super strength to get Tag down, but Bomin was still looking for the other boy after he’d run off unexpectedly and, to make matters worse, Donghyun wasn’t answering his radio to give them any clues as to where he’d gone.

“Where did you see them?” Daeyeol grunted, tugging again at Tag’s arm, only to give up after a few fruitless seconds of pulling. “Well, you’ve got only two options,” the leader announced to Tag.

Tag’s eyebrows drew together in concern. “Yeah?”

“Either we wait for Bomin to come back with Donghyun, which could take god knows how long, or you have to strip,” Daeyeol said.

Tag blinked. “I don’t think I like either of those options.”

Daeyeol shrugged. “I can’t get you down otherwise and the others are already in the car.”

Tag sighed. “Turn around.” Jangjun and Daeyeol both spun around while Tag presumably freed himself.

“Anyway, like I was saying,” Jangjun said, getting Daeyeol’s attention, “I’ve definitely seen those powers before.”

“I feel like if we fought those guys before I’d remember,” Daeyeol said with a frown.

“That’s the thing,” Jangjun replied. “We weren’t fighting against them last time. They were working with us.”

“Why would they be robbing a jewelry store then?” Daeyeol asked, looking troubled. Jangjun just shrugged in response.

“The economy?” he suggested. Daeyeol just shook his head. There was a scream behind them, and both spun around quickly to see that Tag had flopped on the ground in only his tank top and boxers that he wore under his usual outfit.

“You okay?” Jangjun asked. Tag held up a shaky thumbs up in response.

“Hey guys!” a voice called. “I found Donghyun!” Bomin and Donghyun appeared seconds later, Donghyun looking noticeably disoriented and out of breath, as if he’d gone running for a marathon.

“What happened?” Donghyun asked, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. He glanced over to Tag. “Why is Tag in his underwear?”

Daeyeol sighed. It had been a long night. “Let’s go back to the car and we can discuss it with the others when we get home. When you’re feeling up to it, Donghyun, can you pull Tag’s pants off the mailbox?”

 

* * *

 

 Byeongkwan pulled back into the parking garage later that night once they were sure they weren’t being followed, and they unloaded all of their supplies, hauling their stuff up the three flights of stairs to their apartment. Jun unlocked the door and they all tumbled in, dumping the bags in the living room before collapsing on the various furniture set up.

“I still can’t believe it,” Jun murmured, looking at the duffel bags on the coffee table.

“I know,” Byeongkwan agreed. “When that kid landed on the car, I thought that was it.”

“How do villains deal with all this stress?” Jun sighed.

“Let’s at least see what we got,” Donghun prompted. They unzipped their duffel bags quickly and began sorting through all the jewelry. A lot of it looked pretty cheap, though some things they wouldn’t know the real value of until they went to some kind of appraiser.

“Wait, how are we going to sell this stuff?” Yuchan asked. “People will know what went missing right? That store has to have a daily inventory of some kind.”

“I have an idea,” Donghun said, biting his lip. He turned to glance at Sehyoon. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Sehyoon frowned. “Wait, why are you looking at me?”

 

* * *

 

“Well, well, well, who do we have here?” Heejun asked, leering at the five new villains in front of him. “What, not here to slap some handcuffs on us this time?”

Sehyoon narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to retort, but Donghun cut him off before something could start. “We have some things we want to sell,” he said. He could tell he’d caught the three members of KNK that had shown up off guard, even though Inseong was doing his best to hide it.

“When you called us out here, I thought it was a trap initially, but I was pretty curious,” Inseong admitted. “Though I still don’t know why you came to us to sell anything. You know our methods aren’t strictly, ah, above the table.”

“That’s what we’re counting on,” Donghun replied. “We have some jewelry that wasn’t obtained completely legally that we need cash for.”

Inseong, Seungjun, and Heejun exchanged looks. “There’s a story here that I’m dying to know,” Heejun said, grinning widely.

“Not much to tell,” Jun said.

“And it’s none of your business,” Sehyoon sniped. He grunted when Byeongkwan elbowed him in the gut.

“Well, let’s see your haul anyway,” Heejun sighed, disappointed that he wasn’t going to hear any more information. Jun nodded and glanced at Yuchan, and the boy dumped a duffel at KNK’s feet.

Seungjun hunched down to dig through the bag before letting out a low whistle. “Nothing in here is worth much by itself, but you could get some considerable cash for the whole thing.”

Donghun nodded. “We figured as much.”

“You know about our thirty percent commission for selling the property, correct?” Inseong asked, earning nods from the whole group. He grinned. “Then we have a deal?” He extended a hand to the group.

Jun bit his lip before stepping forward and firmly shaking Inseong’s hand. “Deal.”

“Great. You’ll have the money in about a week,” Inseong said, dropping Jun’s hand and turning to the other KNK members. Seungjun had the duffel slung over his shoulder and he nodded to the five villain rookies.

“I’ll get a story out of you eventually!” Heejun laughed. Inseong snapped his fingers, and the three members of KNK were gone in a particularly violent gust of wind.

Sehyoon frowned at where they had been standing. “You think they’ll keep their part of the deal?”

“They’re the only contact we have with other villains,” Donghun said, looking frustrated. “We’re lucky they even agreed to meet with us after we hauled them off to jail once.”

“We really need to expand our network,” Jun sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

“We have to make a name for ourselves first to do that,” Byeongkwan reasoned. “Whatever we do next has to be more high profile.”

“Bank heist?” Sehyoon asked hopefully.

“What is it with you and bank heists?” Jun asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sehyoon shrugged. “They’re what all the movies have.”

“You need to stop watching so many action flicks,” Jun said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, real bank heists aren’t that intense,” Byeongkwan agreed. Sehyoon looked disappointed as they started walking back toward the minivan.

“Hopefully we’ll get the money sooner rather than later,” Donghun muttered. “We really need to figure out our car situation.”

“And buy more supplies!” Yuchan added. “We only have two spike strips left.”

“Ugh, being evil is just as hard as being a hero,” Byeongkwan muttered.

“We have to find a new supplier and repairer for our gear too,” Sehyoon added as he pulled out the van keys and unlocked the vehicle. He slid into the driver’s seat as the rest of the members struggled into the back.

“Wait, why?” Yuchan asked.

“The guy we go to only works with heroes,” Sehyoon explained, pulling his seatbelt on. “He won’t help us now that we’re villains.”

“Couldn’t we just lie and say we’re still heroes?” Yuchan said.

“I don’t think that’d last too long,” Donghun chimed in. “Word will spread fast once we pull a bigger case if it hasn’t already. We weren’t wearing masks when we got rid of some of those Golden Child members.”

“They might not know who we are immediately, but our powers are pretty distinctive,” Byeongkwan said. “If anyone knew us as heroes, they’ll be able to connect the dots pretty fast.”

“Does that mean we have to move?” Yuchan asked.

“Not if they don’t know our real names,” Jun replied. “And we haven’t told those to anyone else in that line of work. That’s actually one of the few things we don’t have to worry about now that we're evil.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you want don't want to ask questions/leave comments here, my Tumblr is nowthatswhaticallpunk. It's not a solely A.C.E blog, but sometimes I post comics and stuff there.


	4. Everyone's Gotta Have A Rival

Kang Yuchan was very worried as he smiled nervously at the boy before him. “Are you ready to order?” Yuchan asked, discreetly wiping one of his sweaty palms on his pants and hoping that none of the kids in front of him were telepathic. The group at the cafe tables didn’t even look at him for anything more than a cursory glance as he pulled out his notepad, and he was grateful for that. Hopefully the fact that the only time the would’ve seen his face was seconds before he blinded them (combined with the fact that only two of them managed to actually catch up with their minivan) meant that no one at the table in front of him would suddenly haul him off to jail. He cursed the fact that he had to keep his job at the cafe because of the sorry state of his group’s bank accounts.

“Yeah, I think we’re ready,” the leader of Golden Child said, handing over his menu. Yuchan took it with his free hand and tucked it under his arm quickly, head ducked down. The man obliviously reeled off ten orders and, with a quick bow, Yuchan hurried back to the kitchen to give the substantial list to one of the chefs.

“What’s wrong Yuchan?” Jun asked, looking up from the dishes he was washing in the large sink. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Jun’s smile faded a little as he saw how seriously shaken Yuchan was. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s them. The hero kids from the other night,” Yuchan hissed, eyeing the door to the kitchen nervously, like the kids would come bursting through it and arrest them right then and there. They seriously couldn’t afford to lose their jobs at the restaurant since the manager was always so understanding when they called in for sick days last minute.

Jun’s eyes widened and he fumbled the mug he was washing, barely managing to catch it before it could shatter on the ground. “Are you sure?” he whispered, looking toward the doors as well. Yuchan could practically see the gears in his leader’s head whirring.

Yuchan nodded vigorously. “I remember the one that landed on our windshield, and he was right there!” He tugged at the hem of his shirt anxiously. “I don’t think they recognized me, but that kid you had to order might recognize you. You have to sneak out of here.” Their shifts ended in half an hour, but Yuchan doubted the group would be gone by then if they didn’t even have their food served yet.

Jun’s bit his lip. “Do you think you could cause a distraction?”

“Like what?” Yuchan asked. He absently hoped this was a one time event for the hero group, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to survive serving them on a regular basis. This much stress definitely wasn’t good for his heart, and he’d have gray hairs before he even hit his 30’s.

There was a gleam in Jun’s eyes. “I have a plan.”

 

* * *

 

‘There’s no way this is going to work,’ Yuchan thought desperately, clutching the strap of his bag. ‘They’re going to see Jun leaving and then they’ll arrest both of us and send us to jail. Oh god, I won’t survive jail.’ He was back in his normal clothes, having changed out of his uniform ten minutes ago. Jun gave him a thumbs up and Yuchan took a deep breath before walking out of the kitchen.

“Um,” Yuchan said, approaching the tables Golden Child was seated at, getting most of their attention. “Sorry to bother you, but I couldn’t ask this while I was on the clock. Are you guys a hero group? I thought I saw you all on the news recently.” A bunch of the members perked up at that, elbowing each other and whispering excitedly. At least Yuchan hadn’t lied about that part; Golden Child had been featured on the news for some reason other than their failure to stop Yuchan’s group from making off with a large amount of jewelry. He was double lucky in that the group didn’t bother to wear masks during their heroic endeavors.

“Yeah,” the one that Yuchan assumed was the leader answered. “We’re called Golden Child. We just debuted as heroes recently.” He looked a bit proud of the fact, and Yuchan immediately felt bad that he and his friends had thrown two of the members off of their car and then blinded the rest of them, but that’s just the way it was sometimes. Yuchan quickly glanced around the table to see the one Sehyoon had flung from the windshield laughing at something another member had said. He was relieved that it didn’t look like he was injured at all.

“Oh, wow, that’s cool!” Yuchan said, trying to keep their attention as Jun slipped around toward the exit in the corner of his vision. “I always wanted to be a hero growing up.” Something bitter churned in his stomach at that, but he pushed it away.

“You still can be!” One of the members said enthusiastically. “If you’re trying to figure out how to get started, I could recommend some places that are looking for rookies to put on trial teams.”

“I’m not sure,” Yuchan began. His phone vibrated in his pocket, signaling that Jun had made it outside. He took the cue and tried to figure out how he was going to back out of the conversation. “I was really just wondering if I could take a picture of you guys?”

“Oh, sure!” the leader said, looking surprised for a brief second before grinning widely. All the group members clustered together as Yuchan pulled his phone out. They all posed together and Yuchan snapped a few photos.

“Thanks!” Yuchan said, fixing a smile on his face. “I’m rooting for you!”

“Thank you,” the leader said. “Maybe we’ll see you out there someday?” 

Yuchan hummed noncommittally before bowing and hustling toward the door. “Yeah we’ll probably see you again sooner than you think,” he muttered under his breath.

Jun was already waiting by a street light. “That was close!” he sighed.

“Too close,” Yuchan agreed. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

 

“I’ve never been recognized before!” Sungyoon said excitedly, beaming from the earlier encounter. "Maybe we should come back here more often."

“Yeah, I guess we’re doing well if we got noticed on our downtime!” Seungmin agreed. "Do you think this is how Seventeen feels all the time?"

“He was kind of odd though,” Jangjun said, frowning. “I got a weird feeling from him.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Daeyeol said. “Anyway, we have bigger problems, like that new villain group that came out of nowhere.”

 

* * *

 

Donghun checked his calculations five times over, just to make sure he was right and he kept coming up with the same numbers. He could hardly dare to believe it as he sat back in the armchair heavily. “Oh my god,” he muttered, staring down at the different stacks of bills in front of him with wide eyes.

“What’s up?” Byeongkwan asked, appearing from his room with a water bottle in hand. “Did Inseong not give us all the money?”

“That’s not it,” Donghun shook his head, “This is actually more than we were predicting.” Byeongkwan almost dropped his water bottle.

“Wait, are you saying-?” Byeongkwan said hesitantly.

“Call the others,” Donghun ordered. Soon enough, the three other members were all standing around the coffee table in the kitchen staring down at the piles of money.

“What did you need us for?” Jun asked.

“That pile,” Donghun pointed to one in the top right, “Is rent. That one is electricity, that one is heat, that one is water, that pile is for more weapons and gear repairs, and that is groceries.”

“What about that one?” Sehyoon asked, pointing to a small pile in set off to the side on the left side of the table. The stack was the smallest by far.

“That,” Donghun paused dramatically, “Is spending money.” There was a brief moment of silence.

“Holy shit,” Yuchan blurted. None of the others bothered to chide him like they normally would.

“That’s right,” Donghun said. He took a deep breath before proclaiming, “We are going to order food to eat tonight.” Byeongkwan, Sehyoon and Yuchan burst into cheers and Jun’s eyes got watery.

“Why didn’t we turn to a life of crime sooner?” Byeongkwan asked, looking thrilled. “Let’s get chicken!”

 

* * *

 

“Alright, it’s like Byeongkwan said,” Jun stated, looking around the group as they sat in various places in the living room and practically inhaling all the takeout they’d ordered. “Our next case has to be a lot more high profile if we want to start building our network.”

Donghun nodded. “Jun and I discussed some options for what that could mean and-“ he raised an eyebrow when Sehyoon opened his mouth, “we decided that bank heists were too specialized to pull off for an undefined group like ourselves. Groups that run those kinds of missions, like ONF for example, are a lot more familiar with the layouts, technology, and methods than we are.” Sehyoon crossed his arms and huffed.

“So what did you come up with then?” Yuchan asked.

“We could try breaking into a house or another store like before,” Jun said, pulling out his phone and scrolling through a list written in his notes section. “I’ll be honest, a lot of the ideas we came up with didn’t have great payouts.”

“What if we tried breaking into a hero’s base?” Byeongkwan said. “We could start a reputation and sell or use all their gear!”

“That’s an option,” Donghun conceded. “But most bases are so well fortified that we’d need a lot of inside knowledge to even attempt that.”

“We could try a rookie hero group,” Yuchan said. “They probably won’t have as much security as an established group.” He grinned. “And I already have an idea of where we could get started.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. Breaking & Entropy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q. Why is A.C.E targeting a rookie hero group when they were broke as rookie heroes?  
> A. I haven't really explained it in the story (though I might mention it later), but the way heroes debut in this universe is similar to how groups debut. Typically, hero hopefuls audition to large companies who will then assemble hero groups and sponsor them, providing housing, food, etc. as well as cleaning up any messes the heroes make when saving the city. In A.C.E's case, they didn't go through any bigger companies when they debuted as heroes, leading to a lack of funding on their end. Golden Child, on the other hand, is sponsored by a larger company meaning they have better housing and technology, which could potentially be sold at a high price. I hope this makes more sense!

Donghun gave the customer a tight smile as he spun around and began making their order– at least he assumed it was an order, though it could have possibly been a bizarre coffee fan chant considering how many ingredients had been reeled off in quick succession– wishing that he could be literally anywhere else. He guessed that working at the coffee shop wasn’t the worst job he could have had, especially since he knew Byeongkwan worked as a cashier at a grocery store and came home with a bizarre story every night. That said, he’d hit his breaking point about a month into the job and now could barely manage to give every customer a smile instead of the most fed up glare he was capable of. It had been over a week since they had planned to hit a hero base, but unfortunately their funds from Inseong wouldn’t last without help until their determined heist date, and they’d all been forced to return to work using public transportation (which they could luckily afford now).

Coffee finished to the best of his understanding, he put the drink up on the counter and called out the name before returning to his place behind the register. He looked up at the next customer, who was fidgeting in place. “Hello, welcome to Java X. Can I take your order?”

“Uh,” the customer said, clearly still examining the menu. Donghun internally suppressed a sigh. 

“Do you need more time, sir?” he asked, wondering if he’d get yelled at if he just told the guy to get out of line until they were ready.

“No, um, I know,” he said, proceeding to rattle off a substantial order. “Sorry, I’m ordering for my group.” He waved a hand in the direction of a table Donghun assumed was where he was sitting.

“Ah,” Donghun said, reading over the list of drinks. He absently looked over in the direction where the customer had gestured, and his stomach immediately dropped to his shoes. There, sitting not even fifty feet away from him, were a few members of NCT. Apparently old habits died hard, because Donghun had to stamp down the urge to barricade himself in the back room against the other villain group based on how they outnumbered him. “That must be rough,” Donghun said, voice strained. He knew the group wouldn’t try anything here, and he doubted that they would recognize him as a former hero anyway given how unknown his group had been, but Donghun still couldn’t fully relax.

The customer laughed. “Yeah, but I’m the new guy, so I can’t complain.”

“What’s the name for the order?” Donghun asked uncapping a marker shakily.

“Lucas,” the boy replied. Donghun gave him a jerky nod, and Lucas walked back to his table to wait. Donghun racked his brain to see if he could remember exactly what the members’ powers were, but all of them got jumbled with so many in the group and more seeming to appear every day.

‘Oh shit,’ he thought suddenly. If he recalled correctly, one of the group was a telepath, though he couldn’t remember if that person was in the group currently at the shop. ‘SHIT’ he thought more emphatically, trying to recall anything possible to block his other thoughts. 

 

* * *

 

“Hey Jeno, are you okay?” Mark asked, concerned, as the other boy rubbed his temples.

“Yeah,” Jeno replied, though it was through gritted teeth. “The barista is just thinking really loudly.” Usually other people’s thoughts didn’t bother him unless he concentrated on them, but these thoughts seemed almost directed at him. It was an odd thought because, as far as Jeno was concerned, he had never seen the barista before in his life.

“About what?” Lucas asked, curious.

Jeno shook his head. “He just keeps repeating coffee ingredients in his head.”

“Maybe he’s new,” Donghyuck suggested.

“Lucas?” the barista called, putting two trays of coffee on the counter. Lucas sprang up from his seat to go retrieve them.

“Now he’s just thinking the lyrics of Winner songs really loudly,” Jeno groaned, letting his head fall forward and thud on the table.

“We can drink on the go,” Mark suggested. Jeno agreed gratefully, and they all got up from the booth to grab their drinks from Lucas. “We’ll get lunch from the convenience store and eat at home,” Mark relayed to the other boy. “Jeno’s headache is going to get worse if we stay here.”

“I wonder why he’s so focused,” Chenle said, glancing at the barista, who was frowning at a stack of coffee cups like they’d personally offended him.

“Maybe he’s trying to keep his mind off of something else?” Jisung said.

“Maybe he recognized us,” Renjun said, frowning as they exited the coffee shop. The group fell silent at that.

“No way,” Donghyuck said, looking like he was trying to convince himself.

Mark looked thoughtful. “Maybe we’ll have to come back to make sure.”

 

* * *

 

“Alright,” Yuchan said, spreading out an assortment of photos on the tiny coffee table featuring a number of boys. “These are all the members of Golden Child. They come to the cafe at least once a week which, let me tell you, is not good for my blood pressure.”

“How did you take these?” Sehyoon asked, raising an eyebrow as he picked up one photo that was alarmingly close up.

“I used my phone for some and then just zoomed way in and took a screenshot,” Yuchan said. “And I also took our spy camera.”

“I locked that up!” Donghun exclaimed. “How did you get ahold of that?”

“I have my ways,” Yuchan said.

“We have a spy camera?” Byeongkwan whispered to Sehyoon. The latter shrugged.

“Anyway,” Yuchan said, avoiding Donghun’s glare, “as far as I can tell from following them after my shift, they always come in together and don’t split up when they leave. I think it’s fairly safe to assume they they usually travel all together, and it’s unlikely that any will split off and return to the base if the others are out.”

“Have we located their base?” Jun asked.

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan confirmed, holding up their tablet with a lone dot blinking on it on a map. “Yuchan slipped a tracker on one of them, and it’s been sitting in this building for a few hours. When we checked it on a map, it looks like a house recently bought by their company. It’s probably their base.”

“We’ll have to go to the site ourselves sometime to get a full stock on the entrances, exits, and general layout though,” Sehyoon said. “There’s only so much Google street view could show us.”

“From what I’ve heard on the news about them, it sounds like they mainly work in the evenings and on the weekends, probably because a number of their members are still in school,” Jun said, gesturing to some printed out news articles of the group he’d spread out on the table.

“They’re so young,” Donghun groaned, slumping forward and placing his head in his hands. “I almost feel bad about this.”

“Even when we could make some money doing this?” Byeongkwan asked.

“I said ‘almost’,” Donghun’s muffled voice replied.

“Anyway, we all have a free evening in two days, so that’s when we’re going to take a trip out there,” Jun said.

“Are we taking the bus there?” Sehyoon asked. 

“Yes,” Jun said, nodding. “Their base is about a fifteen minute walk from it. I’ve been able to work out buying a car from a friend for our future trips, but that’ll take another week or so to get the details straightened out. Until then, I hope everyone brought their walking shoes.”

 

* * *

 

“Can you see anything?” Yuchan hissed, grunting in pain as Byeongkwan tried not to slip off his shoulders. The youngest was currently holding him up to peer through a high window around the back of Golden Child’s base while the other three kept watch.

“I could if you stay still!” Byeongkwan said, grabbing the edges of the window frame to try and steady himself. It was already hard enough trying to look in as it was already getting dark outside, but trying to balance on top of the youngest added a whole new level of difficulty. Yuchan made an offended noise and probably would’ve said more, but Jun shushed both of them.

“Just tell us the important things,” Jun said.

Byeongkwan rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He look down into Golden Child’s living room and then off into the hallways and rooms branching off of it. “They have a big TV. Some of their gear is laying out, but nothing that we could really sell from what I can see currently. Their actual room for supplies is probably locked. There’s a couple gaming things, oh!” He perked up. “They have a Roomba!” He watched the tiny robot whiz around the room.

“What?” Sehyoon asked. “We don’t have a Roomba!”

“Truly these are the perks of having a big company sponsoring you,” Byeongkwan said, shaking his head.

“Anything else?” Yuchan asked.

“Not from what I can see right now,” Byeongkwan replied. “We’d have to go inside to get a better idea of the layout.” He slipped down from his position on Yuchan’s shoulders, allowing the other to sigh in relief and rub his sore muscles.

“Alright,” Jun agreed nodding. “Remember, we’re not taking anything right now. Just take stock of what they have. It’ll take ten minutes at the most.” They all nodded and ran around to the front of the building. Sehyoon bent over the lock as the others scanned around the neighborhood.

The area Golden Child’s base was located at was relatively quiet in the evening, luckily. There were no neighbors out that they had seen when they’d arrived, and Yuchan predicted the group wouldn’t return for at least another hour. As long as they didn’t leave any trace behind, Golden Child should be none the wiser to their breaking and entering.

“Got it,” Sehyoon announced as the door clicked open. He pulled it open gently with a gloved hand, slipping inside with the others following.

“Fan out,” Jun whispered, not sure what security measures would be in place. Given that Golden Child was a rookie group, he hoped they only had the most basic home defenses. He set out down the hallway past the living room, peeking through open doors on the way. Most of the rooms looked to be bedrooms, unsurprising given that there were ten members, but he did see one room that had an amount of camera equipment laying on the table. If anything, he guessed it was their conference room or something similar to discuss their missions.

Donghun had made his way into the kitchen area. There wasn’t anything worth stealing there that was small enough to be carried away later, but he did see that Golden Child’s kitchen appeared to be fully stocked. It was a far cry from their own apartment kitchen with it’s small stove top and microwave. Hell, they didn’t even have an oven. No wonder so many heroes in training signed with big companies, Donghun thought as he examined a shiny steel toaster. The perks were worth working one’s way up the company hierarchy.

Byeongkwan rubbed his temples as he stood by the entryway, keeping watch for any unexpected circumstances. Yuchan was near him, examining the large television and gaming consoles with interest, making tiny exclamations every now and again. Byeongkwan tuned him out as he closed his eyes, focusing on trying to look forward in time.

The room blurred around him, and suddenly he was looking at the place from a bird’s eye view, watching the other members move around as if someone had pressed a fast forward button. Everything seemed to be going as planned when suddenly, something appeared in his vision that had definitely _not_ been there when he’d checked twenty minutes ago.

“Shit!” he cursed, eyes snapping open.

“What’s wrong?” Yuchan asked, bewildered. He looked around, but saw nothing. Without giving an explanation, Byeongkwan darted off into a room branching off to the left from the living room, possibly a study of some kind. Yuchan blinked and went back to stooping down near the television, trying to figure out if it would be feasible to unplug it and take it whenever they came back.

Suddenly there was a click as the front door swung open, making Yuchan freeze. He watched in horror as a boy entered the room and flipped the lights on, locking eyes with Yuchan instantly. As if in slow motion, Yuchan watched the boy’s eyes widen in recognition.

“You’re from the cafe!” the boy exclaimed.

“Uh,” Yuchan replied intelligently, mind racing. He was saved from answering when Byeongkwan suddenly ran out of the dining room screaming bloody murder holding something, Yuchan couldn’t see what, and smacking the boy on the back of the head with it, sending him crashing to the floor. The boy didn’t move to get up. There was a long second as Yuchan just stared at Byeongkwan with wide eyes as what just happened finally sunk in.

“Oh my god!” Yuchan screamed. Jun, Donghun and Sehyoon suddenly rushed into the living room from wherever they’d been around the house. “What the hell?!”

“I panicked!” Byeongkwan said defensively.

“What happened?!” Jun yelled, looking around wildly.

“He killed him!” Yuchan said, pointing at the body on the floor and then to Byeongkwan who was holding, Yuchan now realized, a very heavy looking book.

“I didn’t kill him!” Byeongkwan protested loudly, dropping the book with a resounding thud that even he winced at. “I just knocked him out!” Jun rushed forward to the boy on the ground, checking for a pulse.

“He’s alive!” Jun confirmed.

“See?!” Byeongkwan said.

“Like that makes it better!” Yuchan shot back.

“This was such a mistake,” Donghun moaned, burying his face in his hands.

“Wait, if he’s here, then where’s the rest of them?” Jun said suddenly. Byeongkwan closed his eyes briefly before they snapped open not a minute later.

“Incoming in twelve!” he announced. Donghun let out a string of curses that would barely be appropriate in an R-rated film.

“We gotta go!” Donghun snapped.

“What about the kid?” Sehyoon asked, looking at the door.

“We can’t leave him here!” Yuchan said. “He saw me and he knows where I work!”

“Then we’ll take him with us,” Jun said grimly. “Donghun carry him. We gotta go _now_.” Donghun hefted the kid over his shoulder and they all darted out the door, moving with a speed none of them knew they possessed as they hightailed it to the bus stop, shortening a normally fifteen minute walk to a five minute sprint.

They were all breathing hard when they arrived at the stop, all of them dropping heavily on the bench and Donghun propping up the unconscious hero. The weight of what they’d just done began to register slowly as all the members stiffened.

“Did we just accidentally kidnap a hero?” Yuchan asked slowly, his voice pitching upward toward the end as a panicked look grew on his features. They all looked to said boy, dread settling over them like a cloud.

“This is not how I imagined tonight going,” Donghun muttered.

“This is going to be really bad,” Jun agreed.

“Can’t we just… leave him here or something?” Byeongkwan whined, tapping his fingers against the bench nervously.

“I told you he saw my face!” Yuchan argued.

“Well, what can we do about it?!” Byeongkwan asked, throwing his hands up. “We can’t just keep him forever!”

Yuchan thought a moment. “Moonbin,” he said finally. “Moonbin can erase memories and he doesn’t discriminate whether it’s for villains or heroes.”

“Yeah, but he charges a fortune!” Byeongkwan hissed. “He’s never going to go for this if we can’t pay!”

“Can’t we just owe him a favor for now?” Yuchan asked desperately.

Byeongkwan sucked in a breath. “Astro is not a group you want to owe a favor to,” he said unnecessarily. They all knew that Astro’s favors could range from the simple to the outrageous.

“I’m not sure we have any other option,” Jun sighed. “Call JinJin when we get back.” As if on cue, the bus rolled up to their stop. They all boarded in tired silence, but luckily the driver didn’t even bat an eye at Donghun lugging the unconscious boy on board, Donghun muttering something about the kid having too much to drink. They hastily made their way to a row of seats near the back of the empty bus.

“Is this kid even old enough to drink?” Byeongkwan hissed.

Donghun shrugged. “Hell if I know. They’ve all got baby faces.” They were silent for a while, all of them a bit apprehensive that the kid would wake up in the middle of the ride. Luckily he didn’t even twitch, however there was a whirring sound coming from Sehyoon’s hoodie.

“Sehyoon,” Jun said slowly in his warning tone. “What was that?”

“Nothing?” Sehyoon replied unconvincingly, giving the other members a winning smile. There was a muffled beeping noise right afterward.

Byeongkwan gasped. “You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” Jun asked dangerously.

Sehyoon sighed and slowly unzipped his hoodie, revealing a Roomba. Golden Child’s Roomba. The robot beeped again before Sehyoon pressed down a button, turning the machine off. Secret revealed, he adjusted the robot to hold it in his lap.

“Oh my god,” Jun muttered, looking ten seconds away from a breakdown.

“We need a Roomba!” Sehyoon protested. “We can’t clean all the time ourselves!”

Yuchan frowned. “Did you take its charging port too?”

“Of course I did, who do you take me for?” Sehyoon asked, lifting up the back of his hoodie to reveal the charging base hovering mid air under the loose clothing.

“We stole a member _and_ their Roomba,” Jun groaned. “We are going to get our asses handed to us by a bunch of kids, and we are going to deserve it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly can't explain my love for Roombas or my need to put them in every content I create. Just go with it.


	6. Would You Like Fries With Your Mindwipe?

When Jangjun came to, his head was pounding. He blinked his eyes open, his surroundings swimming into focus after a few minutes. He went to reach up and rub his eyes, but quickly found that he was restrained. He was suddenly very awake, tugging at the the cloth ties (bandannas maybe?) that were keeping his hands and ankles tied to the legs of the uncomfortable wooden chair he was sitting on.

“Wha-?” he muttered, looking around. From what he could tell, he was in some dirty room with dim lighting. The blinds on the windows were lowered so the only source of light were the lights from the hallway near the room. Without a window to the outside world, he had no idea how long he’d been out, though he guessed it was at least a few hours. There was nothing in his immediate surroundings that looked like it could be used to help him escape his bonds. What was going on?

Jangjun struggled despite his headache to remember the last thing that had happened to him before he’d been knocked out. The nightly patrol had gone as normal, all of the members splitting up into smaller groups and then going off on their respective routes. He, Bomin, and Seungmin had been assigned a fairly quiet sector of the city. They’d all regrouped right before midnight to discuss any issues and the plans for the next day before heading to their company’s headquarters. He’d lost the rock-paper-scissors tournament later, and it had been decided that he would head back early to check the security feed at home while everyone else finished giving their report to the company.

He’d been exhausted when he’d gotten back to their base, wanting to just check the cameras, take a shower, and go to bed, when he’d unexpectedly locked eyes with someone who definitely should not have been in their base. At first Jangjun had thought he’d been hallucinating due to exhaustion (because why on earth would the waiter at the cafe he and his friends went to be in his house?), but when the boy didn’t disappear after a few seconds, he’d blurted out the first thing that had popped into his mind. The other boy had been about to respond, with what Jangjun had no idea, but he never heard it because something had suddenly hit him _hard_ on the back of his head and it all went back.

Now that Jangjun thought about it as he shuffled in his seat, his head hurt a lot more in the back, and he was sure he had a bruise forming there. He looked around once more, trying to piece together the layout of wherever he was being kept and why he’d been taken. Was the boy from the cafe involved in something darker? Was he a villain? How long had he been watching Jangjun’s group? Was he working with others? Had they gotten the rest of the members?

At that thought, urgency flooded his veins. Though they were rookies, the other Golden Child members were far from pushovers. Jangjun was sure they’d at least have put up a fight if it came down to it, and they were definitely capable of handling one or two intruders. However, the fact that Jangjun was here and not with Golden Child meant that either the boy had somehow overpowered all ten of them (unlikely), or he’d had even more connections that had somehow managed to take out the rest of his team. There had been at least one other person in the house that the boy had been with who had knocked Jangjun out, so it wouldn’t be farfetched to assume there were others involved. Jangjun supposed it was possible that the boy and his group had just fled with Jangjun after he’d been knocked out, but that also seemed nonsensical. Jangjun wasn’t the strongest on the team like Donghyun or the leader like Daeyeol, so there was almost no reason to kidnap him alone.

The more he thought about it, the more confused Jangjun got about the villain’s motives. He supposed someone might kidnap him in the hopes of luring the rest of his group out, but it was clear that the cafe boy already knew where he lived. Why would he need to kidnap any member? There was also the chance of a personal grudge, but Jangjun couldn’t recall ever offending the boy before, and his group was very polite every time they went out to eat (at least he hoped so). The only other theory Jangjun could come up with was that cafe boy hadn’t intended to encounter anyone when he’d broken into their base, but it would be nonsensical to break into a hero’s base without any backup plans in place, right?

He took a deep breath, trying to push away the pounding headache briefly. Jangjun wished he had Donghyun’s super strength or Sungyoon’s ability to freeze things in his grip, but his power was useless in this situation until someone else walked into his line of sight. Well, there was no point in sitting around feeling sorry for himself until someone came to rescue him. He had to get free and find the rest of his team before something bad happened to any of them. Maybe he could try to break the chair by tipping it over? It was worth a shot.

 

* * *

 

There was a cry of shock and a thud from the living room that Yuchan heard through the wall of his room that he shared with Donghun and Jun. “What was that?” he asked, head darting up. Were the kid’d fellow members here already? Byeongkwan had assured them all earlier that they would be safe as far as he could see, but Yuchan had a hard time relaxing. Golden Child had doubtlessly recruited as many hero groups as they could to search for them. He’d already seen online articles about their accidental kidnapping, and some more famous groups were getting involved. Yuchan shuddered as he imagined Seventeen smashing down their front door. The real fear there came from the logistics of thirteen additional people fitting in their minuscule apartment.

“Jangjun’s up,” Byeongkwan said, poking his head into the room. As soon as they’d gotten back to the apartment, Yuchan had quickly matched their captive’s face with the information and photos he’d gathered at the cafe. Though they still didn’t know what the boy’s power was, they had a name. “And he’s gonna give himself a concussion if you guys don’t do something.”

“Damn,” Donghun swore, dropping his magazine on his bed and standing up. He stretched before moving over to Jun’s bed and shaking the leader awake.

“Wha’s happenin?” Jun slurred, half awake.

“The Golden Child kid woke up,” Donghun said. “You’ll have to put him back to sleep.”

Jun rubbed his eyes. “Right. Okay.” He swung his feet down over the bunk bed he shared with Yuchan and landed heavily on the floor. “He’s in the living room, right?”

“Should be,” Donghun said. He and Yuchan trailed Jun to the common area to find the boy laying on his side, still tied to the chair. He squirmed once they entered.

“I don’t know what you want, but you won’t get away with it!” The kid said, trying to flip over. Yuchan briefly had an image of a large beetle stuck on its back.

Jun frowned. “Did we monologue like that when we were heroes?”

“God, I hope not,” Donghun said, making a face. “Yuchan, go help our guest up please. I’ll be right back. He’s probably got a hell of a headache after being knocked out.” He trudged off toward the bathroom where they kept a variety of painkillers in a hefty first aid kit, leaving Yuchan and Jun to deal with the struggling boy on the floor.

There was a whirring noise, and Yuchan watched as their stolen Roomba rounded the corner into their living room. The boy’s eyes widened. “Is that…our Roomba?” he asked, sounding baffled.

Jun groaned. “I told you to keep that in your room!” he yelled to Sehyoon.

“Wow Jr. is a free spirit! I can’t control him!” Sehyoon loudly replied. Jun pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something Yuchan couldn’t decipher, before bending over to turn the Roomba around. Yuchan watched with mild amusement, but was brought back to the Golden Child member when the boy groaned in pain from his spot on the ground.

“Alright, I’m gonna help you, stop moving,” Yuchan said, approaching Jangjun warily. He had no idea what kind of powers the boy had, but it was best to be cautious. The last time he jumped into a situation unprepared he’d almost ended up with a face full of acid, which was not an experience he was eager to repeat. 

As it was, he hovered right over Jangjun, and just out of the boy’s range should he prove capable of spitting acid, intending to grab the back of the chair and set it back up as fast as possible. Suddenly, the boy’s eyes flashed gold when he met Yuchan’s gaze. Without warning the room was flooded with bright light, much like Yuchan’s own, though Yuchan wasn’t using his powers.

“What-?” Yuchan muttered, unaffected by the light himself, as he looked around the newly illuminated room.

Jun, however, was not as lucky, the sunlight shining directly into his recently awakened eyes. “Ah, it burns!” Jun yelled, slapping a hand over his eyes. The light was gone as quickly as it came, the room plunging back into darkness, but the damage was done. Jun stumbled over to Yuchan, muttering curses and eyes squeezed shut, as he flung a hand out in front of him. He eventually landed heavily on the couch as Yuchan sat the boy’s chair back up.

“You were the one who blinded us!” the boy accused, glaring at Yuchan. 

Yuchan frowned at him. “A copycat?” he asked. He took the other’s lack of response as a confirmation. “Don’t look at his eyes,” he warned Jun. “I think that’s how he copies your power.”

“What was that?” Donghun asked, returning to the scene with pills clutched in one hand. 

“He’s a copycat,” Yuchan relayed. “He used my power. It’s activated through eye contact.”

“And he blinded me!” Jun whined, hands rubbing at his eyes, trying to blink black spots out of them.

Donghun sighed, lowering his gaze. “That’s annoying.” He approached the boy, who immediately flinched away.

“Are you trying to drug me?!” he exclaimed, eyeing the pills with alarm.

“What?” Donghun asked. “God no, what kind of people do you think we are?”

“You did kidnap me,” the boy deadpanned. Yuchan grimaced. The boy had a point.

Donghun shrugged. “Fair. But seriously, it’s just Advil. It’ll help with the headache I’m sure Byeo- Jason gave you,” he hastily corrected himself mid sentence. Understandably, this didn’t do anything to reassure the boy, and he continued to struggle against his bonds as Donghun got closer.

“Look, I swear they’re just painkillers,” Donghun said. Yuchan watched as Donghun accidentally raised his eyes for the briefest of moments, the boy’s eyes immediately flashing gold again as soon as Donghun was right next to him.

“Wai-“ Yuchan began as the boy flexed his fingers, but he was too late to warn the oldest member.

“BACK OFF!” the Golden Child member yelled, the shockwaves sending Donghun flying backwards to leave a vaguely Donghun shaped impression in the wall before falling to the ground with a thud. Yuchan scrambled to cover the boy’s mouth when Jangjun took a breath. The boy made some muffled noises of protest that rumbled lowly through the apartment, but there were no more explosive exclamations.

“What happened?” Yuchan heard Byeongkwan ask.

Donghun groaned, rolling over on the ground. “You two stay in your room. The last thing we need is for this kid to get ahold of either of your powers.” Donghun shakily got to his feet and glared at the boy.

“Alright, look kid,” he said, ignoring the boy’s noise of protest. “Just take the Advil. I will even take a pill myself if it will convince you. God knows I need it after that.” Donghun raised an eyebrow before downing one of the pills in his hand dry. “You gonna keep being difficult or do we have to blindfold you and force feed it to you?”

Jangjun gave the oldest a sullen look, but eventually nodded. Donghun approached the boy again, this time with more caution. He handed the pill off to Yuchan before quickly backing away. Yuchan briefly let go of the boy’s jaw and popped the pill into the captive’s mouth. He immediately covered the other’s mouth again, not knowing how long Jangjun could copy Donghun’s ability.

“Coast is clear,” he told Donghun.

Donghun sighed. “We seriously need to get rid of this kid as soon as possible.”

Yuchan nodded in agreement. “We’ll be able to get rid of him tomorrow.” He said, remembering what Byeongkwan had said regarding his call to JinJin. The boy immediately stiffened in his seat, obviously taking this the wrong way, and started making muffled noises of protest behind Yuchan’s hand. Yuchan blinked. “No, not like that, calm down! Leader, do something!”

“Was there a ‘please’ in there somewhere?” Jun asked, finally dropping his hand from his eyes to look at Jangjun. The boy’s eyes flashed gold again when he met Jun’s eyes. Yuchan watched as the boy flexed his fingers again, and he abruptly realized that the boy was trying to figure out what kind of powers Jun had. He was grateful he was covering the other’s mouth already.

“Sorry,” Jun said to the boy, shrugging. “My ability isn’t really offensive. **_Go to sleep_**.” The boy’s head immediately dropped, and he went limp in Yuchan’s grip. 

Yuchan removed his hand from in front of the boy’s mouth. “If we didn’t have to get his mind wiped before, we definitely do now,” he said.

“What a dangerous power,” Jun sighed, “It’s gonna be rough fighting him in the future.” There was a humming noise, and suddenly Jun yelped in pain. Yuchan blinked to see the Roomba had returned, this time with a kitchen knife taped to the top of it. Jun clutched his ankle in pain. “Goddammit, Sehyoon!” There was a burst of laughter from Byeongkwan and Sehyoon’s room, and Yuchan tried to stifle his own laughter. He was not very successful based on the betrayed look Jun gave him before hobbling back to their room.

Donghun raised his eyebrow at the Roomba. “Hm. We could do worse as far as security systems go,” he said. He untied their captive’s legs from the chair to prop them up on the coffee table so the Roomba wouldn’t run into them. “I’m going to bed. You shouldn’t stay up too much later, Yuchan.” He walked back down the hall, leaving Yuchan alone with an unconscious Golden Child member and an armed Roomba searching for its next victim.

Yuchan sighed. His life was so damn weird.

 

* * *

 

“Thanks for agreeing to this,” Byeongkwan said, smiling at JinJin.

“No problem,” JinJin said cheerfully. “Always happy to have friends here.” He led the five villains (and one unconscious hero slung over Donghun’s shoulder) through the restaurant. They got a few strange looks from the customers as they wove through the tables in the front of the burger joint, but Jinjin just made a motion to the employee behind the counter, Eunwoo if Byeongkwan recalled correctly, and Eunwoo nodded. Eunwoo beamed at the customer in front of him, who froze under his gaze and immediately flushed bright red. Byeongkwan watched in muted awe as Eunwoo began to draw all the wayward attention in the restaurant to himself before relaxing the mood and dispelling any interest the customers might have in Byeongkwan’s group.

“A little scary, isn’t it?” JinJin asked, smile never faltering. Byeongkwan was abruptly reminded how dangerous Astro could be if provoked. 

“Are you sure these guys are legit?” Sehyoon whispered, evidently feeling nervous as well from the employee’s casual display of his abilities.

Byeongkwan nodded. “Nearly every other group, heroes and villains, comes to them if they need something like this. They don't talk about what they do to anyone else either, including the police.” JinJin gave no indication that he heard their conversation as he led the group into the kitchen, past all the deep fryers and grills, and finally to a curtained off room in the back.

The room was dark, illuminated only by a single fluorescent light overhead and a flickering neon sign that read ‘D.Store’. There were none of the bright cheery colors that had been all over the front of Astro’s restaurant, the walls simply a dark grey. The rest of Astro, except for Eunwoo, was already waiting in the back and sitting in the folding chairs set up around a table. There were a number of empty chairs in the room still, and Byeongkwan’s group all sat down hesitantly. “What’s the ‘D’ stand for?” Yuchan whispered to Byeongkwan.

Apparently he wasn’t quiet enough because the Astro members perked up at the question. “It means-“ Moonbin began. JinJin immediately slapped a hand over Moonbin’s mouth.

“It means Dream,” he said, glaring at his fellow member. Moonbin was apparently not deterred by his leader’s expression because he just laughed. JinJin lowered his hand with a sigh. “No one respects me around here,” he muttered.

“I know the feeling,” Jun huffed.

“Anyway,” an Astro member with a wide smile (who Byeongkwan mentally labeled as Headband) said, looking at the five villains. “We heard you have someone you want Binnie to mind wipe?”

“Yes,” Byeongkwan confirmed. Donghun gestured to the unconscious boy that he’d set in front of him.

“We may have accidentally kidnapped a hero after he saw Yuchan’s face,” Jun said, wincing.

One of the Astro members, a tall boy with a baby face, burst into giggles. “That’s amazing!”

“Before we start,” Moonbin said. “I just want to make sure that you’re all aware that what I do is memory suppression, not erasure. The memories can still be recalled if something triggers him to remember. You’ll have to be careful.”

Byeongkwan nodded. “We’re aware.”

“As for the payment,” Moonbin said, smirking. “JinJin says you’d like to owe us a favor.”

“Whoa, really?” the tall boy asked. His eyes shone in excitement. “It’s been a while since anyone’s owed us an actual favor.” Byeongkwan could practically hear the capitalization on the last word.

“We’ll have to make it count,” Headband agreed, looking over the villains speculatively. The group tried not to be disturbed by how out of place Astro’s carefree attitudes seemed to be.

“Anyway,” JinJin said, “do we have a deal?” Byeongkwan turned to Jun who nodded.

“Yes,” he said.

“Great,” JinJin beamed, motioning one of the Astro members forward. “Rocky here is going to form the connection then.” Rocky got up from his chair and extended a hand to Byeongkwan. The precog took it with only a momentary hesitation. As soon as his hand met Rocky’s a jolt ran through his arm, and slowly a star shaped mark appeared on his wrist like a tattoo.

“That’ll let you know when we want to call in our favor,” Rocky explained, dropping Byeongkwan’s hand once the mark had fully formed. Byeongkwan ran his fingers over the mark experimentally, but it didn’t feel any different from the rest of his skin. 

“Now, if that’s all,” JinJin said, clapping his hands together, “It’s best if we let Moonbin get to work without any distractions.” The rest of the Astro members were already filing out, Headband and the tall boy waving cheerily to the villains while Rocky just gave them all a nod, and JinJin motioned for them to follow. The curtain dropped close behind them, leaving Moonbin alone with the Golden Child member. All the other Astro members dispersed to their normal stations quickly until it was just JinJin standing in front of them. 

JinJin sighed as he took in the villain’s unnerved expressions. “I know you might have heard some intimidating rumors about us, but we really don’t try and screw people over. We’ll hold up our end of the deal and, with any luck, the favor won’t be too bad for you all.” He gave them a smile. “Would it help if I threw in a free milkshake?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JinJin lied, the milkshake was only 50% off. Astro has to make money somehow.


	7. Call Me Maybe (Because I Forgot to Save Your Number)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q. How far into the future can Byeongkwan see?  
> A. Ten minutes with very little effort, but if he really strains himself he can view up to an hour into the future. It gives him a major headache though and sometimes he gets nosebleeds or feels nauseated as well. Also, the future can change after he views it.
> 
> Q. Is the whole plot planned out?  
> A. I don't necessarily have the whole plot, but I have major ideas that I write toward. Sometimes though, ideas will pop up while I'm writing and I decide to pursue that plot line. An example: I planned on having Jangjun accidentally kidnapped for a while, but I didn't plan on Astro getting more involved until recently (originally JinJin and Astro was supposed to be more of a cameo, but now they're part of the main story and you'll be seeing a lot more of them).
> 
> Another thing about the universe: some villain/hero groups prefer to go public with their faces while others don't. For example, NCT (127 & U) is public with their faces and names while Dream is not. Typically if a person's identity is unknown to a section's "narrator" (if there is one), I will not use the person's real name (ex. Byeongkwan referring to MJ as "Headband").

There was a knock on the door. Seungmin’s head jerked up from where he’d been hunched over on the couch. He’d had a headache for the past day, worrying himself sick about where Jangjun might be. The rest of the team wasn’t any better off. As soon as they’d realized Jangjun was missing, they’d all jumped into overdrive and called in every connection they had in hopes someone might have an idea. To their despair, they’d come up empty so far. The kidnappers hadn’t even left a ransom note or taken anything of any value (aside from their Roomba, and seriously what on earth was that about?).

Seungmin got to his feet to answer the door, trying to tune out Daeyeol’s frustrated discussion with Sungyoon and Bomin’s frantic calls on the phone that he’d practically been glued to for the past twenty four hours. Seungmin could only hope that the person at the door had some kind of information regarding their missing member.

He swung the door open, and was suddenly blinded with a flash of light. With a yelp, he threw his hands up to shield his eyes and squeezed them shut as well, suddenly reminded of a similar situation that had happened not to long ago when his group tried to chase down a bunch of jewelry store thieves. However, as soon as the light faded, he blinked his eyes open to see a blindfolded Jangjun standing right in front of him.

“Jangjun!” he exclaimed, reaching out to grab the other boy and pull him into the house, as if Jangjun might disappear if he wasn’t fast enough. Jangjun stumbled through the entryway, and Seungmin reached up to untie the bandanna from around the other boy’s eyes. Jangjun looked disheveled and bewildered, but fortunately didn’t appear seriously injured. “Oh my god, where have you been?!”

Seungmin’s frantic fussing had drawn the other members’ attention, and soon all of them were crowding around Jangjun, startling the boy by asking rapid fire questions at once without leaving any time for the boy to respond. Daeyeol finally managed to calm everyone down and got them to back off the shell shocked member. “Alright, first things first we have to get you to the hospital to make sure you aren’t hurt, and then we have to go to the company and the police.” The others nodded. He turned to Jangjun “What happened?”

Jangjun’s brows drew together in confusion. “I…I don’t remember.”

 

* * *

 

_One week later_

 

“Ma’am, this coupon is expired,” Byeongkwan said, already mentally clocked out. His break was supposed to have started five minutes ago, but he’d seen a woman making a beeline for his lane right as he was about to turn off his light. He had decided to stay open out of the goodness of his heart (she only looked to have a basket with a few items in it), and hoped that he could just get her out of the store as fast as possible. That day, fate laughed in his face as the transaction quickly went downhill.

“What do you mean it’s expired?!” she all but screamed in his face. Honestly, he wasn’t paid enough for this. He still had three hours in his shift too, and he’d been looking forward to scarfing down a granola bar on his break. Every second this woman yelled at him was one less he could spend doing just that.

“This coupon says it was good until March of 2016,” he said, pointing to the expiration date in bold black ink.

“And?” She snapped.

“It’s…2018,” he said, eyebrows raising. He wished he could say he was surprised when she continued to argue her case.

“I’ve never had a problem using coupons before!” she insisted. Byeongkwan wished he was off the clock so he could call bullshit, but as it was he just maintained his Customer Service Smile.

“I see,” he said. He glanced at his manager at the customer service desk and sent the other man a look of ‘well?’. His manager just shook his head, essentially indicating that Byeongkwan should just give her the discount to avoid the scene for dragging out any longer. He plugged the discount into the register and hoped the customer enjoyed that 1000 extra won she had. “Have a nice day,” he said, grateful to watch her finally leave.

Without waiting for another customer to come to his lane, he flipped off his light and all but ran to the break room. He sighed, flopping into one of the chairs and pulling out his cellphone, quickly checking for messages. He had no new ones, but he should probably get back to Sehyoon’s question about how much ramen was an acceptable amount to consume in one sitting at a family friendly environment.

“Tough customer?” someone asked from Byeongkwan’s right. The precog looked up, not that he needed to since he recognized the voice immediately.

“You have no idea,” he sighed, slipping his phone back into his pocket as Soonyoung slid into a folding chair next to him. Byeongkwan had liked Soonyoung since the other boy had introduced himself day one. The other boy apparently also helped out at a local dance studio, and they would bond over their love of dance, constantly sharing videos of intense choreography. If possible, Soonyoung had it even rougher than Byeongkwan. Not necessarily money-wise, but in the fact that he shared a dorm floor with twelve other boys, each louder than the last. Byeongkwan had never met the others, but Soonyoung always had fascinating stories to share, which definitely made their monotonous shifts at the grocery store easier to bear.

Soonyoung hummed. “Well, at least they’re gone now.” 

“Yeah, but for how long?” Byeongkwan asked, grinning wryly. Soonyoung shrugged. “Let’s talk about something else. I hate talking about work.”

The other boy seemed to be thinking for a minute. “Did you hear about what happened to that one rookie group? Golden Child, I think?”

Byeongkwan’s stomach dropped, but he tried not to let it show. It had been a week since they had returned Jangjun and, even thought they were pretty sure they were in the clear, they were still on edge. Sometimes Byeongkwan would jump in his room when he heard another one of the members in the hall, and had to physically remind himself to relax. “Oh yeah, I think I heard something. Didn’t one of their members go missing a little while ago?”

Soonyoung nodded. “Yeah. He showed back up the next morning, but apparently he has no idea what happened. They think some villain group kidnapped him, but they’re not sure why. Called a bunch of other hero groups about it.”

“Ah, right they did say something on the news about that. Even Seventeen, Infinite and EXO got involved, right?”

“Yep,” Soonyoung said shortly, shifting in his seat. “Guess they weren’t needed though.”

Byeongkwan shrugged. “Weird.” Silence fell between the two of them. “Anyway, how are things with you lately? Do you still live in that dorm with all those crazy people?”

Soonyoung laughed, sounding relieved. “Yeah, it’s always an adventure. You’ll never believe what happened between Vernon and Seungkwan yesterday.” Byeongkwan leaned back as Soonyoung talked for the remainder of their break. Internally, he was grateful that no one seemed to know about his group’s involvement in Golden Child’s (accidental) kidnapping. He could only hope it stayed that way.

 

* * *

 

“Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” Sehyoon asked, trying not to sound too bored as he switched the desk phone to his other hand. He supposed he shouldn’t be too put out (the rest of the members had far worse part-time jobs), but the monotony was really getting to him. He’d be relieved when they didn’t have to worry about money every month.

“Yes, yes,” the person on the line said, seemingly irritated that Sehyoon had even asked.

“Is your monitor plugged in?” Sehyoon asked, drumming his fingers on the table.

“Yes it- uh, actually it isn’t,” the customer said, sounding both shocked and embarrassed.

“Try that,” Sehyoon said. He waited for a few minutes. “Are you still having problems?”

“Uh, that seemed to fix it.”

“Great, is there anything else?”

“No, no, that was it.”

“Alright, thank you for calling.” He hung the phone up and sighed. After taking a second, he trudged back out to the front of the store, giving his fellow employee a look when the other looked up from whatever he was typing into the computer at the counter. The other man snickered.

“Let me guess, not plugged in?” His smile told Sehyoon that the man had overheard part of the phone conversation.

“Yup,” Sehyoon replied, glancing at the digital clock on the computer. He still had an hour before his break.

“Good news, I have a broken phone for you,” the man said, handing over a phone. Sehyoon pushed the power button, but the device refused to turn on.

“Is that really good news?” Sehyoon asked, taking the phone anyway. “I’ll be back.” He turned and moved to the back room once again, spending entirely too long on what should have been a simple problem. If he used his powers to occasionally nudge a few things around, no one needed to know.

Forty minutes later, he took the phone back to the front once the phone finally displayed a cheery lock screen photo. “I figured it out,” he said, handing the phone off.

The other employee let out a low whistle. “Everyone else was stumped,”  he said, shaking his head, “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Sehyoon gave a small grin. 

 

* * *

 

“Well, now that robbing Golden Child was a bust, what do we do about our money situation?” Byeongkwan asked. They’d all returned to their apartment after work thoroughly exhausted, and had all collapsed around the common area. The week after their failed spying mission had stretched their funding thin, and something needed to be done before they were back in the same situation they had been in as rookie heroes.

Jun shook his head. “That was probably the most viable idea we had. We could try teaming up with another group for a larger heist, but we’d have to find a way to reach out to them.”

“Why can’t there just be a villain chatroom or something?” Donghun grumbled. “It would definitely make this evil stuff easier. How else are we supposed to coordinate? How do villains normally make sure they won’t be in the same area at the same time? Do we actually have to call people directly like it’s the Stone Age?”

Yuchan shrugged. “Maybe we could put an ad online?”

“Yeah, because _that’ll_ never be tracked back to us,” Byeongkwan muttered.

“We kind of know ONF,” Sehyoon said. “We could ask to partner with them.”

“Not the bank heists again,” Donghun groaned.

“Will they really agree to work with us though?” Jun asked. “We’ve stopped them as heroes before.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Byeongkwan decided, fishing out his cellphone. He paused, fingers hovering over the screen. “Uh, does anyone have their number?” They all exchanged glances. “Really?”

“No one remembers phone numbers anymore!” Jun protested when Byeongkwan’s exasperated gaze landed on him.

“I mean, we have KNK’s number,” Donghun said, “Maybe they have ONF’s? Does ONF deal with them?”

Byeongkwan nodded. “I’ll call Heejun,” he said, getting up and leaving the room to make the call.

“On the off chance that they do decide to work with us, would we really be the best option?” Donghun asked. “We don’t know anything about robbing banks.” They all jolted up in alarm at Byeongkwan’s sudden panicked scream, jumping to their feet and racing to Byeongkwan’s room.

“What’s wrong?!” Sehyoon asked, rushing to the other member. Byeongkwan was doubled over in pain, clutching his wrist.

“Calling ONF is going to have to wait,” Byeongkwan managed through gritted teeth. He moved his hand, and they all watched as the star mark from Astro glowed bright red, pulsing like a heartbeat, before fading back to black after a few minutes.

 

* * *

 

“Is this really a good idea?” Bomin asked, eyeing the doors nervously. It was already growing dark out, and they really had no business standing outside a burger joint right before closing time. Except they did. Bomin had no idea how a fast food place looked so threatening, but it was also night time so that might have been it.

“These are the guys that S.Coups said the villains probably went to in order to have Jangjun’s memory erased,” Daeyeol said. “We need to get them to undo whatever they did, or at least give us some information.” They’d asked around for the past week to see if any of the other hero groups had ever heard of a villain with the ability to cause amnesia. Finally, the leader of Seventeen had pointed them in the direction of Astro, though not without warning them first about the  group’s unpredictability.

“I doubt they’ll give us anything though,” Jibeom said.

“Didn’t S.Coups also say they were neutral?” Jooheon added. “And dangerous? Like, really dangerous?”

“It’s still worth a shot,” Daeyeol insisted, marching up to the burger joint’s glass doors. He had barely pushed it open, when one of the employees appeared in front of him with a wide smile.

“I’m sorry, we’re closing,” the boy said, looking pointedly at Daeyeol’s hand, still on the door. “We open at 8 AM for breakfast though.”

“We’re not here about that,” Daeyeol said. “We want to know why you wiped our team mate’s memory.”

The boy’s smile slipped for a second, so fast they might have imagined it, but soon it was back in place. He scanned the Golden Child members before his eyes landed on Jangjun. “Is that so?” He asked, looking back to Daeyeol. His expression and tone gave away nothing. “You must be mistaken.”

“I heard from a reliable source that your group is the only one that has a member with a power like this,” Daeyeol said.

The boy tilted his head to the side, easygoing smile turning sharper. “Even if we did, which I’m not saying we did, we wouldn’t tell you. We have confidentiality agreements to uphold. If we weren’t reliable, we’d have quite a few people after us.”

“You mean you can’t tell us anything about who took Jangjun?” Sungyoon asked.

“The only thing I can tell you is that what our daily specials are,” the boy said, raising an eyebrow. “Now, you really need to leave. We have to sweep.” 

Daeyeol was about to protest when suddenly he felt something on his hand. He looked down and screamed when he saw large spiders and various other bugs crawling all over his arm and even more swarming up the door toward him. He jerked backwards on instinct, the door swinging closed and locking as soon as he did so. He flapped his arm wildly, trying to get the bugs off, the itchy crawling feeling setting all of his nerves on edge.

“What’s wrong?!” Sungyoon asked, surprised by Daeyeol’s sudden flailing. He reached out to steady the leader before Daeyeol could fall over backwards.

“What do you mean, look at all the-!” Daeyeol trailed off mid-sentence when the crawling feeling suddenly stopped and he realized there were no bugs still crawling on him, nor were there any around him. They had all vanished like a mirage and left his whole group starting at him with alarm. He looked up to see the Astro employee wave cheerily at him before flipping the sign on the door to “Closed” and walking back further into the restaurant. S.Coups had been right, Daeyeol thought as he motioned for his group to retreat, still shivering slightly at the feeling of bugs scurrying across his skin. Astro was a very dangerous group.

 

* * *

 

“That was mean, MJ,” Sanha said, though he was grinning from where he’d been wiping the top of the front counter. Myungjun winced at how forced Sanha’s smile was. Normally, the younger would be bent nearly double with giggles, but now he could only see the dark circles forming around the younger’s eyes and the way he seemed to be jumping at the smallest noises. They needed to fix their situation as soon as possible lest their youngest suffer more.

“Maybe,” Myungjun replied with a shrug, trying not to show how worried he was. Sanha would just stubbornly insist he was alright and pout, so instead Myungjun grabbed a broom that had been propped up by the counter and began sweeping the floors. When he glanced out the window, he saw that the hero group had left.  “They were dragging out closing time though.”

“What should we do if they come back?” Minhyuk asked, looking over from wiping down the tables and putting up chairs. He shared a concerned look with Myungjun, pursing his lips as Sanha stared off blankly into space before shaking his head and continuing to clean.

“Just dismiss all their questions,” Jinwoo said, emerging from the back room. “We have a reputation here to uphold. And anyway, I actually like Byeongkwan, and we definitely need his group’s help if we’re going to fix our problem.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fully convinced A.C.E does not sleep and are, in fact, a bunch of dancing vampires.


	8. Astronomically Bad Ideas

The evening after the call, Byeongkwan found himself outside of Astro’s Burgers and Fries once again with the rest of his group around the restaurant’s closing time. He wondered how on earth a burger joint seemed to be so threatening. He was not alone in this sentiment, as when he looked at Sehyoon who was regarding the smiling plastic burger statue in front of the restaurant suspiciously. Byeongkwan patted his friend on the shoulder, silently assuring him that the statue wouldn’t come to life. With a motion from Jun, they all headed toward the glass doors of the burger place.

Because of the lack of customers, they were spotted almost immediately by one of the employees who was clearing a table of trays and food wrappers, Headband, who enthusiastically motioned for them to follow him. Headband quickly dumped all the trash and wiped down the table before leading the group back into the dark room from before. If possible, the room was even more unnerving than it was previously, as none of the Astro members were smiling this time. With their grave expressions, Byeongkwan felt his stomach sink. What had happened to rattle one of the most upbeat teams in existence?

“We weren’t expecting to use our favor so soon,” JinJin admitted first, looking apologetic. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “If circumstances were different, we would have given you an easier favor, but…” He glanced at the tall boy that Byeongkwan had remembered last time for his loud laugh and bright smile. The boy looked considerably worse, and not entirely because of the poor lighting in the back room. If Byeongkwan had to guess, he would’ve said the other boy hadn’t been sleeping properly as he noted the dark bags under his eyes and pale complexion.

“Recently, someone took something from us,” Headband said. “We kept it in the restaurant in hopes of ensuring its safety, but four days ago Rocky looked up and it was gone.”

Rocky nodded. “Somehow it slipped by all of us. It must have been taken during the lunch rush, when we were all busy.”

“Is it very small then?” Donghun asked, frowning. “It must be if someone managed to sneak it out without anyone noticing.”

“It is,” Moonbin confirmed “It’s an alarm clock.” He pulled out his phone and swiped through his photo album before pulling up a picture. He turned the phone to the villains, the screen displaying a light blue digital alarm clock with glowing red numbers.

Everyone in Byeongkwan’s group exchanged looks. “And this is a very important item to your group?” Jun asked, bewildered. 

“Well, it’s not just an alarm clock,” Moonbin said. He glanced at the tall boy. “Sanha, can I tell them?” The boy hesitated for a second before finally nodding. “Sanha’s ability is one of those that never turns off. This meant that when he was younger he had insomnia because of his ability; it would keep him up for days on end.”

“His parents took him to a specialist who created the device,” Rocky said, “The alarm clock can neutralize his ability, but now that it’s missing he can’t sleep anymore.”

“That’s awful,” Yuchan muttered.

JinJin nodded. “Normally we’d go looking for the alarm clock ourselves, but we can’t leave Sanha in this state or his powers might go out of control.”

“We’ve been reaching out to all of our connections for the past few days,” Headband said, “And we found out who has it.”

“And that’s where we come in?” Donghun guessed.

“Yep,” Moonbin said. “We need you to get it back from another group. They probably don’t even know what they have considering the clock only really works for Sanha.”

“What group is it?” Sehyoon asked with a frown. 

“Before I say that, I just want to let you all know I have a plan for getting it back,” JinJin said. As one might expect, this did not fill Byeongkwan or his friends with confidence. The way Astro kept dancing around spilling all the details was putting all of them on edge.

This time Jun asked, a frown tugging at his lips, “Who is it?”

Moonbin scratched the back of his neck nervously. “It’s Bangtan.”

 

* * *

 

Donghun had sworn so profusely when he heard who exactly Astro wanted them to rob that the boy with the headband had covered Sanha’s ears halfway through. The rest of Astro looked torn being shocked and being vaguely impressed by the sheer amount of words pouring out of the oldest’s mouth. The walls had trembled a little as Donghun’s voice had picked up intensity, making the neon D.Store sign flicker.

“Language,” Jun said finally, covering Donghun’s mouth as his tirade finally began to wind down. “But also, you can’t be serious,” Jun said, looking at the members of Astro desperately. “I know we owe you a favor but Bangtan?!” 

Bangtan was one of the most infamous groups in operation. They had no allegiance to heroes or villains, but did whatever seemed to suit their fancy at the time (often with little thought to the consequences). Each member was powerful enough to level a good chunk of the city if let loose, and few groups dared to stand in their way. Needless to say, this was not the sort group a rookie villain team wanted to make enemies of.

“Why would any of them steal your device?” Yuchan asked desperately. “Maybe you got them mixed up with someone else?”

Moonbin shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine as to the reason, but we’re certain it’s at their place.”

“But,” JinJin jumped in, “We wouldn’t ask this of you if we weren’t sure you could handle it.” The villains looked at him disbelievingly.

“I’m flattered you think so highly of us,” Byeongkwan said, “But right now Bangtan would flatten us. We literally just started this whole evil thing, and we don’t have even half the sponsors they have.” On top of being successful, Bangtan was well supported because of their vast network. They often live streamed their battles and heists, gaining them a devoted following.

“No, I mean they’re out of town,” JinJin said, trying to halt the rising panic among the villains. “They went overseas this morning, which is why we waited until today to call you all in.”

Donghun blinked. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but that took a lot of stress off his shoulders. Like instead of a mountain hanging over his head, it was only an elephant. Granted, that would still kill him, but less dramatically. “You’re sure about this?” he asked.

JinJin nodded. “Our sources tell us they got called overseas to deal with some of their sponsors, so their base should be open starting this evening. They won’t be back for five days.”

“They’d still definitely have security measures in place while they’re gone,” Yuchan countered. “And no doubt they’re top of the line.”

“Yes, but we’ve figured out a way around them,” Headband cut in proudly. “We worked out something that is guaranteed to get you into Bangtan’s building. It’s completely fool proof.”

 

* * *

 

“By ‘fool proof’ did you mean ‘proved by fools’?” Donghun asked, looking down at his outfit. He sullenly tugged the work uniform lower, but to no avail as both the sleeves and hem ended about an inch before what would have fit.

“Look, they asked a cleaning service to come in while they were gone, and we managed to get you some uniforms,” Headband, MJ as he’d finally introduced himself, said. “They won’t suspect a thing, not even on the security footage, if you’re all snooping around their place as the cleaning staff.”

“And your _certain_ Bangtan won’t be there?” Jun asked.

“It’s what our connections reported,” JinJin said, nodding.

“How trustworthy are these connections?”

JinJin shrugged. “They’ve never let us down before.” Jun sighed. “Now you all need to get in the van quickly. They’re expecting you in about half an hour.” The five villains were herded into the van, Sehyoon sliding into the driver’s seat while Byeongkwan claimed shotgun and the rest jumped into the back. Donghun let out a splutter of protest when a mop smacked him in the face once the car set off.

“At least we only owe them this one favor and we’ll have paid them back,” Yuchan said, wrinkling his nose at the chemical smell of the cleaning supplies.

“This is still a lot of trouble if things go wrong,” Donghun said. “Where did you even meet those guys, Byeongkwan?”

The precog turned around in his seat. “Well, I really only know JinJin. We met…” he suddenly frowned. “Uh.” Donghun raised an eyebrow. “It was a long time ago,” Byeongkwan said, looking a bit confused. “I don’t remember the details. It was probably in college before I dropped out.”

“How on earth did you forget meeting any of them?” Jun wondered. “Even if I got a restraining order and then didn’t see them for the rest of my life, I think I’d remember them.”

“I don’t know!” Byeongkwan exclaimed, turning back to the road. “Take a right,” he ordered Sehyoon. Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of a large and rather expensive looking house. Though the house wasn’t gaudy, it was large and open looking. Byeongkwan absently wondered how many of their apartment could fit inside the space.

“Remember, act natural,” Jun said, looking around the group. Sehyoon gave him a thumbs up and Yuchan tried to pull a natural expression, but just ended up looking pained. “Oh my god,” he muttered before spinning around in his chair and grabbing a bucket of cleaning supplies. He started sliding open the van’s side door when Donghun grabbed his arm.

“Wait.” Donghun said, dropping Jun’s arm to rifle through his own pockets. “I don’t think we’ll need to use our abilities, but just in case…” Donghun passed out sets of earplugs while they were all still seated. “Don’t lose them.”

“No worries,” Byeongkwan muttered, stuffing the earplugs into his pocket. “I actually like hearing.” They all hopped out and dragged various buckets and supplies that Astro had helpfully provided as props from the back of the van before walking up to the front door. Sehyoon rang the doorbell with little hesitation. They all tensed, ready to cut and run should any member of Bangtan answer.

“If Suga answers the door, I will not hesitate to trample you running away,” Byeongkwan muttered to Sehyoon out of the side of his mouth.

“Same here,” the other boy replied.

The door swung open, interrupting their conversation, and all the villains straightened up hastily. To the group’s relief, it wasn’t a member of Bangtan, but just an older and very frazzled looking man. “Ah, you must be the cleaning service.” He glanced at his watch. “And right on time too.”

Byeongkwan nodded. “Yes, sir. Absolutely Clean Environments, at your service. We pride ourselves on our punctuality.”

“Since when?” Yuchan whispered, only for a grunt of pain to follow as he was presumably elbowed.

“Great. I’m one of the group’s press managers,” the man said, evidently not hearing and stepping back to let them all into the entryway. The inside of the house was as grand as the outside. 

They all took in the high ceilings, open spaces, comfy furniture, and even a beautiful glass chandelier hanging over the foyer. Though everything was clearly worth more than their apartment five times over, there were obvious signs that the house was lived in. Designer shoes were strewn around the entryway and various articles of clothing, papers, and devices littered the hallways, tables, and rooms fanning out from where they stood. Byeongkwan imagined this was what a very rich fraternity’s interior looked like.

“I apologize for the state the house is in,” the man said. “Usually it isn’t this bad, but they were packing at the last minute and they didn’t have time to clean up before they left. I’ll show you what areas you need to go over.” He set off down one of the hallways, and the group trailed him in a single file line.

Yuchan tapped frantically Byeongkwan’s arm as the manager led them through the house. “That’s J-Hope’s uniform!” he hissed, looking at fabric draped over the back of an armchair with wide eyes. “And that’s the laser they took after RM’s solo mission!” He gestured around wildly, pointing out various object strewn around the halls and living areas that Byeongkwan had seen in grainy YouTube clips and newspaper photos.

The more they looked around, the more Byeongkwan felt seriously out of his depth. Bangtan was a powerful group that would have no problems squashing the five of them for stealing from their house. “I should have wrote my will before we left,” Byeongkwan muttered quietly, wiping his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants.

Sehyoon turned at that, frowning. “You didn’t? Mine’s on my bed. I even printed it on the good paper.”

“And that’s all you should really need to know,” the manager said, clapping his hands. “Just don’t go into their bedrooms or any locked rooms. Seriously, I can’t thank you guys enough.” The man’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out with a sour expression. “I actually have to run to a meeting now, but you guys should have my number if you need anything.”

Jun nodded. “Yep,” he confirmed. Byeongkwan had no idea what the man’s number was, so he hoped Jun was telling the truth and not pulling something out of his ass. Either way the man was gone in a matter of minutes, speaking frantically with someone on the other line. They all finally exhaled when they were alone.

“Alright,” Jun said, adopting his leader role. “Did anyone see anything while he was showing us around?” There were looks exchanged, but they all shook their heads.

“I saw a lot of stuff from Bangtan, but nothing that looked like the alarm clock,” Yuchan said.

“Yeah,” Sehyoon agreed. “It might be in one of their rooms or something.”

Jun sighed and dug around in his bag of cleaning supplies before pulling out a crowbar. “Then I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

 

* * *

 

The first bedroom they broke into had nothing that looked like Astro’s device. Luckily, Jun hadn’t needed to use the crowbar as Sehyoon’s ability had been sufficient to get through the locks. Unluckily, there weren’t any alarm clocks in general, much less the one Moonbin had showed them back at the restaurant. “Who even uses an alarm clock anymore?” Byeongkwan wondered. “I just use my phone’s alarm.”

“It might have just been an aesthetic design choice,” Sehyoon suggested. “You know, because they have a ‘Dream Store’ and that whole colorful theme going?”

“I can’t blame a group for going with their aesthetic,” Byeongkwan conceded. They continued to dig as carefully as they could through the current bedroom they were in, hoping they wouldn’t noticeably disrupt any of the rooms too much.

“Well, seven people definitely live here,” Jun said in disgust, eyeing the pile of clothes in the corner. It was reeking an indecipherable odor and Byeongkwan idly thought that it might achieve sentience if left alone for too much longer. “They could have at least sprayed some air freshener before they left. That’s gonna get musty as hell.”

“We could spray air freshener,” Yuchan suggested.

“No, because we’re not supposed to even be in here,” Byeongkwan said, cracking the closet door open.

“Oh, right. Well, we could leave a coupon for Febreze on the counter.”

“Nothing in this room,” Sehyoon reported. “Well, except Jimin’s hair products. Honestly, I kind of want to take a picture of all of them so I can find them on Amazon later. I have no idea how he manages to keep his hair in place when he’s backflipping over a giant robot.”

“I honestly thought it was part of his ability,” Yuchan said.

They moved onto the next room quickly, which just turned out to be full of Jin and Suga’s belongings. “There’s so much Mario stuff,” Yuchan noted, looking over the extensive collection at the foot of Jin’s bed. “He never mentions this in interviews.”

“Not much over here,” Sehyoon reported from Suga’s side of the room.

“Nothing in the closet either,” Donghun said, sliding the door shut.

Jun sighed. “Well that just leaves the last bedroom.” They moved to the last room with mild trepidation. Up until this point, everything was going smoothly, almost too smoothly. Byeongkwan was half worried that they’d tripped some kind of invisible alarm. Nevertheless, Donghun opened the door to the last bedroom.

“There it is!” Yuchan blurted, pointing to what Byeonkwan assumed was V’s bed (judging solely by the amount of Gucci clothing dangling off of it).

“Wait!” Donghun said, putting a hand out to block the others before they went into the room. “This is too easy.”

“Do you really think they’d trap their own room if the others weren’t trapped?” Byeongkwan scoffed.

Donghun shrugged. “I don’t know, but with our luck the floor will probably open up into a pit of acid or something. Can’t you just look ahead a bit?”

“Fine,” Byeongkwan said, his eyes unfocusing. He watched the room for as time seemed to speed up before his eyes, even making the extra effort to look a full half hour into the future, but no one appeared in his line of vision. He blinked, frowning as his head throbbed once before settling. “I didn’t see anything in the room,” he reported.

“Good enough for me,” Sehyoon said, taking a step inside the room. When nothing happened after a second, he continued far enough to grab the alarm clock before darting back to the door. “See? Easy as-“

“Halt,” a robotic voice intoned from the ceiling. Their heads all whipped around, trying to find the source of the noise. “I’ve been watching you root through our rooms.” The voice said, “And it’s, like, seriously uncool.”

“What?” Donghun whispered.

“So put the clock back down on V’s bed, and I won’t send my robot after you.”

“Who’s even talking?” Sehyoon asked, cradling the clock closer to his chest.

“Don’t worry about it,” the voice said. “I’ll give you five seconds. If you want to live, I recommend doing as I say. Five…”

“Run?” Yuchan suggested. Caution thrown to the wind, they all began a mad dash toward the front door, stumbling around the hallways in the house’s layout.

 

* * *

 

“Threetwoone!” the voice yelled, and there was a crashing noise behind them. Donghun looked back to see a very large gleaming pink robot, almost as tall as him, tear around the corners after them with a series of buzzing saws held aloft on the ends of its long arms. Its head was that of a cartoonish rabbit, but it’s eyes glowed bright red in a way that only spelled death. Donghun definitely wouldn’t call it cute when the robot slashed a jagged fissure right through the ground where he had been not a second earlier.

“Holy shit!” he yelled, turning back around and pumping his legs even harder. “Killer bunny!” The others glanced back in disbelief before they realized what was chasing them and picked up the pace as well. Sehyoon thrust a hand behind him, but all it did was shove the robot back a few feet before his concentration broke and the robot surged forward once again, blades slashing down without warning or pattern. Absentmindedly, Donghun wondered how much damage the robot was doing to the house’s foundations, since he was pretty sure it had sliced a good amount of furniture, walls and floors to bits already. Bangtan’s interior decorator would not be impressed.

They had just reached the front door, when suddenly a set of steel doors emerged from slots hidden in the door frame’s sides and slammed shut in front of the front door. Simultaneously, iron bars shot out across the windows as well, effectively locking them in. He could hear the robot bunny getting closer, the crashing noises from the hallway getting louder.

“Sehyoon, do something!” Yuchan yelped, tugging at one of the iron bars on the window futilely.

“Working on it!” The robot made its appearance as soon as Sehyoon had started focusing on the steel halves covering the door. They began sliding open way too slowly, and Donghun was sure they’d be chopped to bits if he didn’t act fast.

“Earplugs!” Donghun ordered, and the group scrambled to shove the specially ordered earplugs into their ears. Glaring at the robot, Donghun planted his feet, opened his mouth, and Y E L L E D. The robot was blown backwards by the force of the sound waves, and the walls of the house even shuddered from it. The rest of the group could feel the vibrations in their bones and their teeth rattled even from where they were standing behind Donghun. 

“Got it!” Sehyoon yelled, turning around when he remembered none of them could hear him. He shook Byeongkwan by the shoulders, and motioned to the open door. Byeongkwan smacked all the others on the back and tugged them toward the exit, Donghun being the last in line as he was still using his ability to keep the killer robot at bay. 

Despite his best efforts, the robot was managing to stay on its feet as it adjusted to his sonic waves, even managing a few sluggish steps forward. In desperation, Donghun’s yell reached a pitch where the glass chandelier over the entryway shattered and the contraption came plummeting down, effectively trapping the robot underneath it. Donghun bent over in exhaustion, breathing heavily and staring at the mess of metal and glass, but the robot made no move to get up. 

He only started to move his legs when Jun tugged him in the direction of the van. They ran to the car, but the robot didn’t follow them out of the house. The van peeled out of Bangtan’s driveway with a screech of tires. In the van, the Jun and Yuchan removed their earplugs as Donghun collapsed in the backseat.

“Never…again,” Donghun panted.

“We are never owing Astro a favor again,” Jun agreed. 

“Please tell me you have the alarm clock,” Donghun said, looking to Sehyoon. The other didn’t respond. “Sehyoon,” Donghun said warningly.

“He’s still got his earplugs in,” Byeongkwan said in exasperation. He poked Sehyoon in the arm and mimed taking out the earplugs when the other looked over. 

Sehyoon hastily complied. “What?”

“You have the alarm clock, right?’ Donghun asked again.

“Yeah, it’s right here,” Sehyoon said, pointing to his lap. He picked up the clock and handed it behind him to Donghun before cranking the wheel to the right.

“For fuck’s sake,” Donghun grunted as he barely managed to hold onto the clock as the van tilted dangerously around the curve. 

“My bad!” Sehyoon shouted back. Donghun shook his head and looked down at the device in his hands. He couldn’t believe they almost died for this thing. They spent the rest of the twenty minute car ride back to Astro’s Burgers and Fries place in silence.

 

* * *

 

“Damn,” Jungkook muttered, frowning at his tablet as the screen flashed a ‘Game Over’ at him and played a sad series of notes. “I almost had them.” He’d have to buy the supplies for another robot as well, and he definitely wasn’t looking forward to that. He shifted on the couch as he tapped around the screen aimlessly, half heartedly hoping his robot would still be functioning enough to get back up and return to its charger. His robot apparently wasn’t getting up any time soon though, because the screen stayed black.

“What’s wrong, Kookie?” Jimin asked, looking over from his seat at the dining table.

“Nothing,” Jungkook lied. There was no point in telling the others about the intruders now since they had only taken that weird alarm clock Taehyung’s warps had accidentally swiped from that one burger joint. Jungkook had personally thought the thing was tacky, and Namjoon had been nagging Taehyung to return it anyway and ‘stop collecting weird things’ (though Namjoon really couldn’t speak with his sizable collection of Ryan plushies). 

Jimin narrowed his eyes, seemingly debating whether it was worth the effort to question Jungkook further, but he eventually shrugged and went back to whatever he was doing on his phone. “Okay.”

Jungkook let out an internal sigh of relief. He definitely wasn’t looking forward to the earful Jin would give him when they got back and discovered Jungkook’s robot crushed in the entryway, the ripped up slices in the wall and the floor, and also Jungkook’s secret security measures and cameras that he’d installed when he’d been bored one Saturday. At least this time it wasn’t totally his fault. Jungkook swiped back to his photo album on his tablet, flipping through the screenshots he’d taken through his bot’s cameras. It would probably help his case that he had the intruder’s faces.

 

* * *

 

“You’re back!” MJ cheered when the five villains returned to their restaurant, well after closing time. “We were getting worried about you.”

JinJin nodded. “We thought that maybe you'd gotten caught or something.”

Donghun gave the group a dirty look. “Yeah, we got it.” He handed the alarm clock to Astro’s leader. “But we nearly died in the process! How did you leave out the part about their giant killer robot?!”

Moonbin’s eyebrows shot up. “They have a giant killer robot?”

“Maybe we should invest in one,” MJ mused, completely missing the point.

“Absolutely not,” JinJin deadpanned. He turned back to the group. “I’m sorry about whatever happened there. We really did think it would just be a quick mission with minimal risks, though it appears that wasn’t the case.”

“Just tell me we’re square now,” Donghun said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” JinJin said, looking at Rocky. The other boy waved a hand and the star marking on Byeongkwan’s wrist flared bright red before fading like it had never been there. “For what it’s worth, this means a lot to us.” JinJin passed the alarm clock over to Sanha, who looked inordinately relieved to have it back.

“Thank you,” Sanha said, for once sounding completely genuine instead of his normal teasing tone.

“It’ll help you sleep, right?” Sehyoon asked, recalling what the group had told them earlier about Sanha’s powers.

Sanha nodded. “Right.” He hesitated. “Do you all know what my power is? It-”

“Are you sure you want to tell them?” Eunwoo cut the boy off, looking concerned.

“I think they deserve to know after they went through all that,” Sanha said. He looked at the villains consideringly. “Can you all promise not to tell anyone?”

“Are we going to have to form another deal?” Donghun asked warily.

The tall boy grinned. “No, I’ll just take your word for it. Unless you _want_ to make a deal with Rocky.” Said boy shot them finger guns.

“We won’t tell anyone,” Jun assured Sanha quickly.

Sanha nodded to himself. “I can bring my dreams to life. When I was younger, I started bringing really bad things out of my dreams, and they wouldn’t disappear until I went to sleep to reset them. I started getting scared to sleep, and I stayed up for days so nothing bad would happen. I finally went to see a specialist who gave me this.” He held up the clock. “I’ve gotten so used to having it, I can’t sleep without it now.”

“He almost collapsed the other day,” Eunwoo confirmed. “We were all worried about him, but if we leave him alone, his dreams will get even wilder.”

“If anything, we owe you now. Drop by anytime to ask for help. Well, except for tomorrow. Sanha’s going to take the day off to recover, so we’ll be closed tomorrow,” Moonbin added, ruffling the youngest’s hair fondly.

“Wait, why?” Yuchan asked, confused. “Can’t you just keep the place open without him?”

JinJin shook his head. “Nope. He’s integral to our success.”

“But feel free to come by any other time,” Moonbin encouraged. Sanha yawned loudly.

“Alright, bed time,” JinJin laughed. He turned back to the villains. “Thanks again.” Sanha hit the button on the top of the alarm clock, and suddenly all the other members of Astro vanished.

“What-?!” Byeongkwan yelped, looking around wildly. “Wait!”

“Where’d they go?” Yuchan blurted, staring wide eyed right where Moonbin had been standing as if he might reappear if Yuchan looked long enough. Sehyoon waved a hand through the area where MJ had disappeared, though he didn’t make contact with anything. They all looked around for a good few minutes until Sanha sighed.

"They aren't hiding or invisible," he said. "I just neutralized my ability."

“They’re his dreams,” Donghun realized suddenly, looking at the alarm clock in Sanha's hands and then at Sanha.

Sanha grinned tiredly. “Yeah. They appeared about six years ago, and they’ve stuck around ever since. They’re the only dreams who have existed for so long.”

“No way, I knew JinJin before!” Byeongkwan said, shaking his head with a frown. “I met him before the rest of them! Before I even met you!”

The tall boy tucked the alarm clock under his arm. “How did you meet JinJin?”

“I was…he…” Byeongkwan’s brow creased in confusion as he drew a blank where the memory should be once he tried to recall it. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally.

Sanha nodded. “You’re only connected to him through dreams. That’s why you know him, but you can’t remember the details of knowing him. You just have the feeling that you do. For what it’s worth, JinJin thinks you’re a good person.”

“He does?” Byeongkwan asked, starting to doubt everything he thought he knew about the other. The concept of JinJin being a dream seemed ridiculous, but there was no other way to explain what he had just witnessed. “How do you know?”

“He told me,” Sanha replied. “They can still talk, think, and feel. At least, I think so. Some people have said that they can’t form actual emotions and attachments, but I don’t believe them. To me, the others all exist the same as we do.” Silence descended over all of them for a few minutes as the group digested this.

“Are they real?” Sehyoon asked finally, cutting to the heart of the matter.

Sanha tilted his head, biting his lip as he seemed to seriously consider the question. “Personally, I’ve decided that dreams are as real as we all make them.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll return to your regularly scheduled light comedy now.


	9. Ten-sion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify about Sanha and Astro's powers: As long as Sanha is maintaining Astro they legitimately exist in and can interact with the real world, and all of their powers and effects are in operation. In fact, their powers' effects last even when the members are not in existence (ex. Jangjun's mind is still wiped even when Moonbin does not exist and Rocky's connections last even when Rocky does not exist). This is the main reason his power needs to be suppressed in the first place, because he was bringing some really bad stuff out of his dreams whose effects would linger long after Sanha was awake.

“Seriously, we can’t thank you enough for your help,” JinJin said, glancing at the alarm clock sitting back on the shelf next to the entrance. There was now a protective locked plastic case over it. He looked back across the booth table to face Byeongkwan. “You really saved us there.”

“Uh-huh,” Byeongkwan hummed, slowly shredding the napkin in front of him. He’d come to visit Astro’s Burgers and Fries three days after their adventure in Bangtan’s house. Everything in the burger joint was running as smoothly as it normally did, but the precog couldn’t bring himself to relax despite that. His eyes traveled to all the other members of Astro running around the dining area, his mind helpfully whispering that none of them were real. 

JinJin either didn’t notice his discomfort or he was tactfully avoiding saying anything. Byeongkwan wasn’t sure if he was grateful or not. “As a thank you, we wanted to give you some intel. There’s a group that needs help with transporting some stolen goods. Honestly, it’ll just be like helping someone move house. You’ll be compensated for it, and they’re pretty friendly so you might make some good connections.”

“What group is it?” Byeongkwan asked.

“They’re called UNB,” JinJin said. “They tend to only work small cases right now, which sounds like it’s right up your alley. You definitely won’t get a big group called in on you if you’re caught.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Byeongkwan agreed. JinJin smiled, and they lapsed back into silence. After a few minutes, JinJin sighed and Byeongkwan realized he’d been staring.

“You don’t need to treat me differently, you know,” JinJin said with a wry smile, confirming that he had known what was on Byeongkwan’s mind. When Byeongkwan raised an eyebrow skeptically, he laughed. “Alright, that’s fair. I know it’s a weird thing to comprehend, but honestly it’s easier if you just treat me like you always have. Trying to figure out my existence gives even me a headache. As far as I know, I still exist as far as most people are concerned.” He picked up some of the silverware on the table as if to prove he could still interact with the real world.

“How can I treat you as I always have if I don’t even know when I met you?” Byeongkwan asked, narrowing his eyes.

Astro’s leader let out a breath. “Okay, here’s the full truth. In reality I’ve only known you for a year, which was the first time you stepped foot into this restaurant.”

“It was the opening day,” Byeongkwan said in realization.

“Right,” JinJin confirmed. “Typically people who enter our restaurant have no connections with us, but for some reason you formed memories when you entered. Trust me, all of us were surprised when you came up to me and started talking like we were old friends.”

Byeongkwan struggled to recall the day in question. The opening for Astro’s burger joint was bright and cheerful. He remembered that he went into the restaurant that day only because he’d seen a sign on the road with balloons on it and decided to find somewhere new and cheap to eat. As soon as he’d walked in, his eyes had landed on JinJin, and he’d walked right over to the other man. Almost without thinking about it, he started talking about his past classes and the last few days, memories of the two of them in classes surfacing almost out of nowhere. 

“That’s…” he trailed off, not sure how to finish the thought.Thankfully JinJin seemed to understand because he nodded.

“Yeah. That’s only happened one other time for us,” he said. “With KNK.”

Byeongkwan jolted at the mention of the other villain group. “You’re close with those guys?!”

“They think we are,” JinJin laughed. “And Sanha gets along with them like a house on fire. But anyway, you and I have known each other for a little while now. I know we don’t actually have all the memories you think we do, but I’ve always considered you a friend since that day.”

Byeongkwan frowned slightly, trying to come to terms with everything. “How can we be friends if we never actually met?”

JinJin paused for a minute before he extended a hand over the table to Byeongkwan. “Hi, I’m JinJin. I’m the leader of Astro, even if no one ever listens to me.” He gave the villain an easy smile, making it clear that he was not pressuring the other to take his hand if Byeongkwan didn’t want to.

Byeongkwan looked at the offered hand, then JinJin’s face, and back again. The more he thought about it, he realized that he didn’t really want to lose his connection with the other. Sure, he might not have known JinJin for as long as he’d initially thought, but the other had been helping Byeongkwan and his friends this whole time. With an internal ‘screw it’, the precog took JinJin’s hand to shake. “My name is Byeongkwan. I’m a pretty terrible villain.”

JinJin beamed, squeezing his friend’s hand once before dropping it. “I don’t know. I think there’s hope for your group yet.”

 

* * *

 

Donghun honestly hadn’t been this stressed since a giant metal robot had been chasing after him through Bangtan’s house half a week ago. Luckily that had ended with Astro, more specifically Sanha, promising to help make some connections with other operating villains. His current situation, however, had ended a lot less pleasantly. He checked over his shoulder nervously before he added a swirl of whipped cream to a drink.

He cleared his throat. “Lucas?” Much to his despair, the NCT members had been visiting the coffee shop he worked at nearly every other day. Sure, the members changed out every now and again between the younger unit, but they were always in the corner of his vision like clockwork. He’d never had any desire before to dropkick a high schooler and make a run for it, but he guessed that was just his life now.

The eager boy from before bounded up to the counter and received the cardboard drink tray with a smile. “Thanks!” He left just as quickly with the beverages. Donghun almost found it hard to believe that the same boy and his friends had leveled a whole building just the other week according to the local news. At least the telepath wasn’t in the group that had come in today (at least Donghun was pretty sure he wasn’t).

But it was no use dwelling on the kids. The bigger problem now was making the connections with other villain groups. Byeongkwan had apparently gotten some information from JinJin, but the precog said he would wait to tell the rest of them until that evening. Donghun wondered who it could possibly be that would want to work with a rookie group like them. He was so lost in his thoughts, he poured the coffee to the point of overflowing and the steaming liquid burned as it hit his hand.

He jerked backward with a (thankfully normal) yelp. The remaining coffee luckily didn’t slosh out of the pot, but he quickly set it down to examine his wound. Donghun shook his head as he trudged over to the sink to run his hand under some cold water. He needed to focus. Now wasn’t the time to worry about his financial situation, lest he develop an ulcer in the middle of his shift.

Donghun tried to snap himself out of it, shaking his head. He was focusing so hard on the next customer’s order that he failed to see who had just stepped into the line in front of him. “Can I have a name for the order?” Donghun asked, focusing on punching keys on the cash register.

“Ten.” Donghun’s head snapped up to see the NCT member staring at him with a smirk. The other was dressed in casual clothing with a baseball cap over his hair and a face mask that was currently pulled down; a weak attempt at a disguise. It wasn’t like he was fooling anyone though, if the fact that all the other customers were edging away from him were any indication (and if Donghun had to guess, this kind of reaction was what the other had intended in the first place). 

Many customers looked torn between either running for the door or staying and trying not to draw Ten’s attention. Donghun had no clue what the other was doing outside like this when his and his group’s face were splashed across the evening news on a near weekly basis. The Dream members might have been able to get away with coming out in public since they worked in disguise (the only reason Donghun knew their identities was because of police reports he’d read), but the older NCT members rarely dared to reveal themselves unless they were pulling a job.

Donghun wondered if his cover had been blown by the younger NCT members, but a quick glance at their table when he spun around to get started on Ten’s drink revealed that the kids were just as surprised to see Ten as he was. The coffee shop was deathly silent as Donghun prepared the drink, the only sounds coming from the coffee machines. Donghun didn’t dare to turn around while he was working, though he could feel Ten’s gaze burning into his back.

Eventually, he couldn’t put it off any longer, and he spun around quickly to slide Ten’s drink across the counter. “Ten?” he called, more out of habit than anything else. The NCT member took the beverage, apparently unbothered by the tense atmosphere. He took a drink and Donghun briefly considered if the other was reckless enough to start anything in broad daylight with all these witnesses. 

“Thanks,” Ten said finally. “Some of my friends have been coming here a lot lately, and I wanted to see what the big deal was about this place.” Donghun’s eyes flicked involuntarily in the other NCT members’ direction before going back to Ten. He realized his mistake when Ten’s grin widened. He cursed internally. “I think I’m starting to get an idea,” Ten said, tugging up his face mask. Without any further words, he turned and walked out the shop’s doors, people scrambling to get out of his path as he left.

There was a very long pause after the door swung shut behind him. Donghun could hear some hushed whispering, and he looked to see the younger NCT members talking frantically amongst themselves. Soon enough, their table cleared as the group hurriedly threw away all their garbage and rushed out the door. Almost like that was a signal, people started moving and talking again, apparently reassured that Ten wouldn’t suddenly reappear and reduce the establishment to rubble. 

For the last twenty minutes of his shift Donghun took orders on autopilot, many of the customers giving him pitying glances and obviously thinking Donghun was a dead man walking. Donghun grimly thought they probably weren’t too far off from the truth.

“Dude, I wouldn’t blame you if you quit now,” one of the customers said, dropping a sizable bill into the tip jar. Donghun nodded mechanically. He had to tell the others.

 

* * *

 

Golden Child was _still_ coming to the cafe, and Yuchan was seriously about five seconds from banning them for some ridiculous reason or another (not that he actually had any authority to do so, but it was a nice thought). The group obliviously talked amongst themselves as he passed their table, chatting excitedly about some heroic act they’d pulled off the other day. Yuchan wondered if the cafe possibly had another location that he could transfer to, or if they could at least open a delivery option so Yuchan could escape the building if necessary. He’d be willing to deal with pedaling all over the city if he could escape this situation.

That day he took their orders as per usual, grateful that the members of Golden Child never really ordered anything different, and at this point Yuchan didn’t even need to write anything down. He retreated to the kitchen quickly. At least Jangjun hadn’t given him away yet, the other only looking vaguely confused when he saw Yuchan before quickly shaking his head. Yuchan really needed to start looking for help wanted signs. Jun had already quietly left for another job since more Golden Child members knew his face, and Yuchan was starting to think that was the smartest course of action for himself as well. He recalled Moonbin’s warnings about how the slightest action might awaken Jangjun’s memories if Yuchan wasn’t careful.

Twenty minutes later, Yuchan was sent out with all the dishes carefully balanced on a tray, partially grateful that the large group usually ordered platters of food rather than individual meals, but also struggling under the weight. All the food was distributed as quickly as he could manage, and he left them with a short bow.

Back in the kitchen, he pulled out his phone to see that he only had a few more minutes left in his shift before he could duck out and go home. He silently resolved to put in his two weeks notice at the start of his next shift. Plan made, he made it through the rest of his shift tensely, taking measures to avoid Golden Child’s table as much as he could. When it finally ended he let out a breath in relief, scurrying back to the kitchen to grab his things.

He hurried through the dining room as fast as he could without looking up, and possibly because of that he ended up running into a customer. Yuchan let out a cry of suprise as he felt the impact, but the customer was the one who fell to the ground. Yuchan immediately dropped his belongings, apologizing profusely as he helped the customer to his feet. As he pulled the customer up, Yuchan realized it was Jangjun.

“I’m so sorry, Yuchan found himself saying, avoiding eye contact with the other boy, “I wasn’t looking where I was going and I-“

Jangjun was rubbing the back of his head, but he waved off Yuchan with a smile. “No, it’s fine I…” his eyes locked with Yuchan’s suddenly and he suddenly frowned. “You…” He winced as if he had a headache before his eyes widened. Dread settled in Yuchan’s stomach as he saw recognition dawning in Jangjun’s eyes.

“Um,” Yuchan began.

“Roomba thief!” Jangjun blurted, drawing the attention of the other diners and unfortunately the rest of Golden Child sitting only a few tables away. All of them looked at Yuchan who, with the amount of pressure he was under, did the only thing he could reasonably think of doing in that moment. The cafe was suddenly flooded with blinding light.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turning into a miniature Sun is the only appropriate response to being startled.


	10. Help Wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! Classes have started up again for me, and it's been quite hectic. That said, my updates might be pretty sporadic since I don't know when I'll have time to work on this story. I apologize in advance, but I do have a good amount at least planned.
> 
> Also, I really want to focus on rookie groups for this story, so even though BTS is going to help move the plot forward, I'm not going to involve them or any of the other more popular groups too much. Sorry if you were hoping for more involvement from them :P

Yuchan knew he only had a minute or so before his light faded and, almost before he could process it, his feet were carrying him out of the restaurant and down the street. His mind was shrieking at him to run and hide, ideally to get somewhere safe so he could call one of the others to pick him up. He risked a glance over his shoulder, but didn’t see any members of Golden Child tearing out of the cafe after him. Despite that, he ducked his head and pushed himself forward, ignoring his burning lungs.

A few blocks later, he ducked into an empty alley and crouched behind a dumpster. The smell was awful, but Yuchan barely noticed it as he gasped for breath. There was still no noise behind him, nor any other indication that anyone was chasing him, but he tried to keep quiet. Fumbling in his pockets, he finally managed to pull out his phone and scroll to Byeongkwan’s number. The other member worked not too far from Yuchan’s cafe, and was currently his best bet of being found. He faltered on the keypad a few times trying to type the message out.

 

_Code rrd cme get me ally by fiffffth strrt_

 

He hit send and stuffed his phone back into his pocket. As the gravity of the situation finally hit him, he buried his head in his hands. No doubt he was fired after pulling that stunt. The rookie heroes would probably tell the cafe manager that he was a villain and Yuchan would be lucky if he was even able to show his face on this side of town again without being arrested, much less return to his job. He realized he had no backup plan to cover his share of the rent.

Yuchan felt tears of frustration itching at the back of his eyes as he silently berated himself for being so stupid. He should have quit immediately after the fiasco with Jangjun, but he’d stuck with his job in hopes that nothing would trigger the hero’s memories. Now he’d be lucky if he hadn’t put the other members at risk.

“Stupid,” he muttered, slamming his fist against his leg. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“Hey, don’t say things like that, or else you’ll start believing them.” Yuchan’s head whipped up to see Byeongkwan crouching in front of him.

“Wha-?” he blurted, immediately covering his mouth to avoid being heard.

Byeongkwan grinned sheepishly. “I kind of knew this was going to happen,” he said, and Yuchan blinked before internally groaning. Of course.

“I’m sorry,” Yuchan whispered, biting his lip. “I didn’t… I should have quit earlier. I was stupid.”

Byeongkwan frowned and leaned forward to flick Yuchan on the forehead, eliciting a yelp of pain. “None of that. You’re not stupid.”

“But I kept working there even though I knew Golden Child went there!” Yuchan protested, covering his forehead. “I could’ve tried harder to find another job.”

Byeongkwan shrugged. “It’s not just your fault. I could have looked into the future this morning and told you not to go to work. We all could’ve started looking for other jobs for you after sending that Golden Child member back. A lot of things could have happened, but we can’t dwell on that now. We’ve made a mistake, and now we need to find a solution.”

Yuchan pouted. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something once we can get home and talk about this with the others,” Byeongkwan said, straightening up enough to peer over the dumpster. Apparently the coast was clear as he motioned for Yuchan to do the same. “Come on, I know what path those baby heroes are gonna take, so stay close. Pretend we’re playing real life Metal Gear Solid and hand me that refrigerator box.”

 

* * *

 

“So what are we going to do then?” Sehyoon asked, frowning. He rolled over on his bed to see Byeongkwan drumming on his leg from where the other was sitting on his own bed. Byeongkwan had always been an energetic and relatively carefree person, so it was almost jarring for Sehyoon to see him this serious. They were lucky that Yuchan was in his room with Donghun and Jun, as Sehyoon was sure the boy would only feel worse if he saw how stressed Byeongkwan was.

“I don’t know,” Byeongkwan muttered, frustrated. “He can’t go back to that job, but he’ll have a hard time finding work anywhere else in the area if Golden Child decides to spread what his face looks like.”

Sehyoon toyed with a fraying string on one of his sheets absently. “We could try and look for maybe something he could do online. Yuchan’s always been pretty good with computers. Or maybe he could make crafts or something.”

“Something tells me that making products for Etsy wouldn’t cover his part of the rent,” Byeongkwan replied dryly. He let out a breath. “We can talk more about it in the morning. Jun or Donghun might have some ideas.”

As if on cue, the door to their room banged open, Jun bursting in with a laptop in one hand. His eyes were wide and darted around to every corner of their room nervously.

“Sure, come right on in,” Byeongkwan said, eyebrows shooting up. Usually they all at least knocked out of courtesy.

“Sorry,” Jun said quickly, “But we have a problem.” He spun the laptop around, and Byeongkwan and Sehyoon got up from their beds to look at the article he had open. Sehyoon could hardly believe his eyes as he skimmed the article.

“Is this real?” Byeongkwan asked, voice going higher toward the end.

Jun nodded. “Yeah. And that’s really bad news.”

Sehyoon shook his head. “‘Bad news’ is an understatement. This might as well be death sentence.”

 

_Bangtan Offers Bounty for Home Invaders:_

 

_In a surprising statement, group Bangtan Sonyeondan has taken to Twitter to enlist their many devoted followers’ help in finding a group that they claim to have stolen an item from their house. Their fans answered the call and are now on the hunt for the individuals pictured in the photos taken by Bangtan’s security system…_

 

The force of Donghun’s yell when he found out shook the entire apartment building.

 

* * *

 

All the members had quit their jobs as a security measure. Though they were mostly certain that none of their co-workers had managed to identify them from the grainy photos posted, they couldn’t take the risk. Having a bounty on their head had kept them all in the apartment for three days until the need to get food had driven them out.

“We can’t keep living like this,” Donghun muttered, glancing at the windows which currently had their shutters pulled tight with a towel pinned over them for good measure. “We’re already starting to dig into our food budget for next month.”

“This is my fault,” Yuchan said, glaring into his bowl of ramen.

“No, this is all of our faults,” Jun said. “We all knew that helping Astro could have consequences.”

“We still need to come up with an idea though,” Donghun said. “Even though I hate it, our only option might be to move out of the city until this whole thing dies down.” Yuchan and Byeongkwan looked ready to protest.

“He’s right,” Jun said, giving them both a look. “As long as Bangtan has a bounty on us, we can’t move freely around here.” An uneasy silence settled among the five of them as they all came to terms with their lack of options.

 

* * *

 

Minhyuk sighed as Sanha picked up his phone for the third time in as many minutes before setting it back down on the booth’s table again. “Just call them if you want to,” he said, leaning on the broom. The restaurant was closed down for the night, leaving only the members of Astro inside.

Sanha bit his lip. “It was our fault this happened. It was my fault.”

“We needed their help,” Minhyuk reminded him. Sanha frowned, but Minhyuk barreled on before he could protest, “If they hadn’t gotten the clock, we would have an even bigger mess on our hands.”

Sanha looked down at his phone again. “I guess,” he said. “But then we should offer this as an option, right?”

Minhyuk shrugged. “You know we all trust your decisions,” he said.

The taller boy pouted. “Tell me the truth. Don’t just say it’s okay because it’s me suggesting it.”

Minhyuk let out a breath. “I’m not going to say this won’t be dangerous, because it is. In fact, this might be one of the most dangerous things we’ve done. People will say we’re taking a side here.” Sanha nodded. “But,” he drew out the word, “Helping them would make it easier for us to sleep at night.”

 

* * *

 

“Thanks for coming here. I know it must have been dangerous.” Byeongkwan glanced around before turning back to JinJin.

He tugged down his face mask quickly and narrowed his eyes at his friend’s amused smirk. “How are you so relaxed?” Byeongkwan hissed. “I’m a wanted criminal.”

Jinjin laughed. “It's not that dire. You’ve got Bangtan after you, not the police.”

“That’s even worse!” Byeongkwan groaned, dropping his head into his hands. He flinched as Moonbin passed the table to mop up a spill in one of the other booths. “Sorry, I’ve just been on edge lately. We all have.” He tapped his fingers nervously on the table. “We can hardly go out these days.”

Jinjin grimaced. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. We didn’t mean for any of this to happen when we asked for that favor.”

Byeongkwan sighed, taking in Jinjin’s expression. “We know. And honestly, I’m sure all of the others would do the same thing again, but we still have to either find a way to make money, or get out of the city.”

“That’s actually why I called you here,” Jinjin said. “I have a solution to your problem. For now, at least.” Byeongkwan raised an eyebrow, trying to see if the other might be joking. Jinjin was smiling once again, and hard to read. Byeongkwan absently wondered how much actually went on in the mind of a dream.

“Oh really?” He said.

Jinjin nodded. “Yep.” He paused dramatically. “We want to offer you a job here. All of you.”

Byeongkwan blinked. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting (though honestly he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting). “Are you stirring my pasta right now?” he blurted.

“Am I _what_?”

“Are you messing with me?” Byeongkwan clarified.

“Uh, no?” Jinjin said, brow furrowing. “Although I’m starting to regret the offer already.”

Byeongkwan stared blankly at the table for a few seconds, stunned. “You’re really giving all of us a job here?” he asked.

“Yeah, if you guys want it,” Jinjin said. “We owe you for your help. You wouldn’t be in this situation without us. And it’s not like any of us except Sanha need the paychecks anyway.” He gave Byeongkwan a dry smile.

“I…” he almost wanted to turn down JinJin’s offer, not wanting to impose on the other’s kindness, but then he remembered how devastated Yuchan had been at the thought of moving and how stressful it would be on all the others if they had to uproot their lives and start over somewhere else. “I need to talk about it with the others, but I think they’ll say yes,” he said finally.

Jinjin beamed. “Just let us know. We’ll get you started whenever you’re able to. Employees get a fifty percent discount on food if that influences your decision.” That actually did sound pretty tempting, not to mention they were struggling with food expenses at the moment, but another thought struck Byeongkwan.

“Won’t you all be in danger too if Bangtan finds out?” Byeongkwan asked.

The leader waved a hand. “Not even Bangtan would mess with us in our own territory,” he gestured to the restaurant. “You’d all be safe enough working here. Though I’m afraid our reach won’t extend to your housing.” He grimaced.

“We’ll figure something else,” Byeongkwan said. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Jinjin smiled. “It’s what friends are for.”

 

* * *

 

Jinwoo leaned back on the booths shiny plastic seats as he watched Byeongkwan exit the restaurant, tugging his face mask back up and looking around quickly. The rookie villain was out of sight in a hurry, and Jinwoo found himself grinning. “You know,” he said, “It’s not polite to eavesdrop.” He waited a few seconds and soon a man slid into the other side of the booth across from Jinwoo, right where Byeongkwan had been hardly a minute ago.

“You knew I was there the whole time, didn’t you?” the man said, sliding off his sunglasses and pulling off the baseball cap on his head. He didn't look surprised, but then again he was always pretty hard to read.

“Of course,” Jinwoo replied, not offering any more information. He put on a fake smile. “But why would a member of NCT be gracing us with his presence today?”

“Why would Astro be offering some random villains a job?” Ten replied, giving Jinwoo an equally fake smile. “Are you choosing sides now?”

“We’re doing no such thing,” Jinwoo said easily. “Just helping a friend.”

“You’re friends with them?” Ten asked, glancing out the window in the direction Byeongkwan had been headed. He turned back to Jinwoo. “Looks like that group is more interesting than I thought. What exactly are you planning?”

“I should be asking you the same thing,” Jinwoo said. “Don’t think we don’t know what your group is up to.”

Ten grinned, though it looked more like he was baring his teeth. “And what are you going to do about it? Your team seems to never leave the store.” He looked meaningfully at the alarm clock near the entrance. “I wonder why that is?”

Jinwoo had to physically force himself not to react. “You really shouldn’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Ten raised his hands in mock surrender. “Message received. I’ll get out of your hair.” He slid out of the booth and stood up.

“Take your friends with you too,” Jinwoo said, getting up as well. Ten narrowed his eyes and looked around to see Moonbin, Minhyuk, and Eunwoo had all found the other NCT members in the restaurant.

“We’ll be back soon,” Ten said, turning toward the exit as the other NCT members did the same.

Jinwoo’s smile didn’t falter. “Fine with us, but you better buy something next time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Myungjun: "What do you MEAN we're losing our paychecks?! Who is going to pay for my skin care routine???"


	11. NCT's Orders Put Sanha Through College

“We really need to talk to Yuchan,” Donghun said, glancing over to Jun as they got dressed in Astro’s restaurant uniform (which was thankfully just a yellow shirt with whatever pants they wanted). “He’s still blaming himself for everything.”

Jun sighed. He could hear the running water from the bathroom signaling that the youngest was still in the shower, and probably would be for a few more minutes. “I know,” he said, “But he just doesn’t seem to listen. All of us have told him it’s alright.”

“When we get back from work, we should all just sit down to talk with him about it,” Donghun said. “If this goes on too long, he might do something he regrets. Honestly I hope I’m overreacting, but he’s just been in a weird mood ever since we found out about the bounty.”

The leader nodded. “You’re right. When we get back tonight we’ll talk about it.” They finished getting ready in silence. A few minutes later the water shut off, and Yuchan emerged into the hallway soon afterward with a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Sehyoon, the shower’s open!” Yuchan called. Sehyoon’s muffled voice replied in confirmation. The boy turned to look at his room mates.

“Hey Yuchan,” Jun said, trying to look like he and Donghun hadn’t been talking about him just minutes ago with limited success. “How are you feeling?”

Yuchan raised an eyebrow. Jun felt himself start to sweat a little as Yuchan seemed to look right through him. “Fine,” Yuchan said, drawing out the word. Luckily, Yuchan just shook it off and started digging through their shared closet for his own uniform, which allowed Jun to turn away. Though he was glad that Yuchan had dropped the conversation, it was also a bit worrying as the boy was not shy about questioning Jun until the other folded (though that didn’t usually take very long). Donghun gave Jun a sidelong look that said he was thinking the exact same thing.

“So,” Jun began slowly, watching as Yuchan just tilted his head without turning around to indicate that he was listening. “Donghun and I think we should have a group meeting tonight after we get back from work.”

Yuchan pulled his shirt over his head and turned when he resurfaced from the closet. “Why?”

“Well, we want to start planning on our next move,” Jun said. ‘We can’t work for Astro forever.” This was clearly the wrong thing to say, as Yuchan’s expression dropped minutely before snapping back into place. Jun winced internally.

“Okay,” Yuchan said, shoving the hanger his shirt had been on back into the disorganize forest of clothes with a little more force than necessary. “I’ll tell Byeongkwan.” He strode out of the room quickly before either Jun or Donghun could get in another word.

“That went well,” Jun muttered lowly, rubbing his temples.

“Maybe he’s just going through puberty?” Donghun offered weakly, shooting a worried look at the door.

“He’s twenty one,” Jun said disbelievingly.

“A second puberty. A worse one. Puberty II: The Reckoning.”

Jun snorted. “Let’s hope not. I can’t stand most sequels.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, working at Astro’s Burgers and Fries wasn’t that much different from what Donghun had done at the coffee shop. As soon as he told JinJin that he’d been a cashier before, he’d been shoved behind a register next to Eunwoo. The taller man had given Donghun a blinding smile that he’d been slightly mesmerized by for a good ten seconds. ‘He can’t be real,’ Donghun had thought, before immediately realizing that Eunwoo _actually_ wasn’t real. He wondered how Sanha had managed to dream up such a person at the age of twelve.

“I’m glad you all came here,” Eunwoo said to Donghun during the lull between breakfast and lunch. “We’re a little understaffed. I’m usually the only one on register.” Donghun looked around and saw that Eunwoo was right. There appeared to be no other employees besides them and Astro. He guessed it made sense, given that any other people added to the risk of Astro’s secret being revealed.

“Sorry we’re taking your paycheck though,” Donghun said.

Eunwoo just shook his head with a smile. “All I really bought with it was my Netflix account. Most of it went into Sanha’s college fund.”

Donghun nodded, trying to wrap his head around the idea of not really needing money. If only he could sign up for being the figment of someone else’s imagination. “We’re really grateful though. If you need anything…” he trailed off, realizing he didn’t have much at the moment to offer.

“It’s no problem,” Eunwoo assured him. “Sanha seems to really like you guys.” He looked up when the door swung open, admitting a large group. Donghun immediately stiffened as he saw who was entering before ducking under the counter a beat too late. “It’s okay,” Eunwoo muttered as the NCT members approached the counter, “They’re not going to try anything here.”

Donghun rose hesitantly to look at the NCT members, hoping that they’d missed him trying to hide under the counter. Given the snickers of one with reddish hair in the back, he wasn’t successful. He looked back at the open area to see all the other members of his team were frozen staring as well. Yuchan looked about five seconds away from going supernova, and Donghun tried to send him a reassuring look. The last thing they needed was to start a fight blindly.

“Hi, are you ready to order?” Eunwoo said, willfully ignoring the tense atmosphere. Donghun was grateful that the other was handling this, as he wasn’t sure he’d be able to act normal in this situation. Donghun watched as two Astro members herded the rest of his group away from the front of the restaurant and to the employee break room.

“Yeah,” one of the NCT members said (Jaehyun, if Donghun recalled the police reports correctly). He proceeded to rattle off a long list of orders, enough to feed at least eighteen people, and received an equally high bill in return. Once the order was settled, the group took their receipt to a table to wait, but not before Ten gave Donghun a sharp smile and friendly wave.

Eunwoo turned to Donghun as soon as the group was out of earshot. “Like I said: don’t worry. They can’t do anything here. They know better than to try anything in our territory.” As if on cue, it felt like the air got heaver somehow over where the NCT members had settled in. Some of the younger members’ heads whipped around as they sensed the change. Their leader Taeyong narrowed his eyes at Eunwoo and nodded, acknowledging Eunwoo’s unspoken threat. “That should at least make them think twice about saying anything to any of you.”

Donghun blinked. He wondered, not for the first time, how strong Astro was if one of the fastest growing villain groups was wary of them. “Thanks,” he said, the word feeling almost insufficient for the situation.

Luckily, Eunwoo seemed to get his meaning. “Just stay behind the counter for now. I’m sure MJ and JinJin would prefer to take out the food just this once.”

 

* * *

 

“We did order something this time,” Ten said with a grin as a tray full of burgers and fries was set down in front of him. Almost immediately, one of the other NCT members was starting to dole out orders, calling out names faster than Jinwoo could keep up with.

“That’s true,” Jinwoo replied, setting down the tray in his other hand. A group of younger members descended upon it like a swarm of locusts as soon as it landed on the table. In other circumstances Jinwoo would have probably laughed. As it was, he just gave Ten a fake smile. “Can’t be mad, I guess.”

Myungjun raised an eyebrow at Jinwoo from across the table where he was holding the other food trays. _‘Are you serious?’_ Myungjun’s expression said. Jinwoo offered a half shrug in response. Myungjun sighed dramatically and set down the trays hard. All the members looking at them jumped in surprise. Jinwoo didn’t want to know what Myungjun had made them see for that brief second, but given how they were poking carefully at the fries he had his suspicions.

Jinwoo hurried around the table to move Myungjun along before the other antagonized the villains too much. “Enjoy your food.”

“What was that?” Myungjun hissed once they’d made it back to the kitchen. For once he wasn’t smiling, which was pretty jarring on his normally chipper expression. “Why are they here?” Jinwoo gave him a look that said they both knew the answer to that. “Okay, we know why they’re here, but what kind of message are they even trying to send by doing this? That they outnumber us? We all already knew that! It’s hard not to when their order grows by at least fifteen dollars every time they visit!”

“Was it really fifteen dollars?” Jinwoo asked, eyebrows raising.

“Yes!” Myungjun said, flapping his arms around. He pulled the group's order off the spike they stuck receipts on, and the piece of paper unraveled all the way to the floor. Jinwoo felt a little faint looking at the final total in bold black ink on the bottom. “In fast food numbers that’s like… three more people!”

Jinwoo grimaced. “Soon we’re not going to be able to seat all them.” He glanced out the tiny window in the kitchen door as if trying to judge how much space in the restaurant was left. “We should start requiring them to make reservations if they come in with over six people.”

“That’s not the point,” Myungjun said, waving a hand and sending the receipt flying around and almost catching fire over the stoves, “The point is that they clearly aren’t going to be shy about challenging us in our own territory! I’m not sure how much longer we can stay neutral in this particular case.”

The leader bit his lip and nodded, taking the receipt from Myungjun before the older boy actually did set off the sprinkler system. “I know. We just don’t have enough information about what they’re planning yet to make any moves against them though.” Myungjun frowned as Jinwoo seriously considered their situation. “What about UNB?”

“What _about_ UNB?” Myungjun asked.

“The mission they asked Byeongkwan’s group to go on is close to NCT’s territory. Maybe we could ask Byeongkwan or someone to poke around a bit while they’re moving things.”

“You want to ask them another favor?” Myungjun asked. “The last one didn’t exactly go well and we don't have a debt to call in on them.”

Jinwoo shrugged. “We might not have a choice.”

Myungjun made a face. “No, the problem is we do have a choice but both options are worse than a school bus full of children coming through the drive thru.”

 

* * *

 

“Wait, UNB still wants to work with us?” Byeongkwan asked, honestly baffled. JinJin nodded, a half grin on his face.

“Yeah. They say it’s low profile enough that your bounty shouldn’t really affect anything,” he said. “As long as you guys don’t cause a scene, it should be fine.” He made a face. “Also their sister group, UNI.T, is busy with some other mission on the other side of the city and they don’t have time to schedule working with another group.”

“Nice to know that we’re highly anticipated,” Byeongkwan said dryly. Then more seriously, “But really thank you. I feel like we’re relying on you guys a lot these days.”

JinJin shrugged. “If you can’t rely on your friends, then who can you rely on? Now I’d start gathering supplies. You don’t want anything to go wrong with UNB. One more thing, there’s something you might want to check out while you’re down there…”

 

* * *

 

“Did you hear that?” Tag said excitedly, retracting the listening device. He crouched back down behind the bushes around the edges of the restaurant’s parking lot that the rest of Golden Child was squatting behind. “They’re going to be pulling a job with UNB in a little while. That’s the perfect opportunity to intercept them!”

Daeyeol nodded. “Right. If everything goes well, we’ll have taken down two villain groups in one night.”

 

* * *

 

Yuchan wasn’t sure how to feel when the night to meet up with UNB finally came. He knew the others were worried about him and that, in turn, just made him feel like more of a burden to the group. Honestly Yuchan didn’t trust himself on missions anymore, and part of him just wished he’d stayed back at their apartment. He planned to just hang back for most of this mission (not to mention he doubted anyone would need his abilities much anyway).

They pulled the minivan JinJin had lent them again up to the nondescript building that they’d typed into their GPS. All the windows were dark, but Yuchan guessed that was to be expected all things considered. Truly one of the worst parts about turning to the dark side was the lack of actual proper lighting.

Jun led them to the front door and pounded the door in a rhythm that Yuchan assumed was some kind of code. He was proven right when the large metal door swung open dramatically a few seconds afterwards.

“This feels like a horror game,” Sehyoon muttered in front of him.

Yuchan could make out Byeongkwan shrugging in the low light. “They’re a new group. They’re allowed to be dramatic.”

“Everyone try not to give too much away when we meet them,” Jun said. Without even seeing it, Yuchan knew that Donghun was rolling his eyes. They all stepped through the doorway quietly, the door slamming shut behind them.

 _Telekinesis?_ Yuchan thought, _Or maybe magnetism like Sehyoon?_

A flourescent light flicked on overhead, temporarily blinding all of them. Someone groaned at the sudden blast of light and Yuchan abruptly realized how other people felt when he used his power on them.

“I’m glad we invested in those blackout curtains,” someone muttered, a voice Yuchan didn’t recognize. When he was finally able to open his eyes, he saw eight more people standing in a half circle in front of him. To his surprise, most of them were around his age, if not younger.

Apparently Sehyoon had the same thought as he muttered, “Truly are there no jobs on the market these days?” Only to grunt in pain soon after as someone, likely Donghun, elbowed him in the side.

Yuchan looked at all the newcomers warily, temporarily locking eyes with a tall boy whose eyes lit up in amusement. “Oh my god,” he muttered, looking at Yuchan before turning to a short boy (the leader?) at the head of the half circle. “Can we keep that one?”

Donghun’s eyes widened briefly before narrowing into slits. In a voice that lightly shook the foundations of the building he growled, “Over my dead body.”

Jun looked between Donghun and the still smiling UNB member, clearly alarmed by the exchanging of threats within the first five minutes. “Um,” he said eloquently, eyes begging any of the other members for help, or maybe a silent request to hold Donghun back. “We’re here to help you with transportation. JinJin said he found your request on Craigslist?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Astro really have a lot of connections, or do they just religiously monitor Craigslist and LinkedIn?
> 
> Would Ten or Jinwoo win in a passive aggressive standoff?
> 
> And, most importantly, how much was NCT's final order and who was paying?
> 
> The answers to these great mysteries are up to you.


	12. Murphy's Law

There was a tense standoff as Donghun continued to glare the UNB member down during Jun’s strained pleasantries, not even budging when Yuchan elbowed him in embarrassment. Byeongkwan turned to Sehyoon and made a face, prompting an equally distressed one in response.

“Well, this is off to a great start,” Byeongkwan muttered under his breath.

“So what kind of goods are you moving?” Jun continued, willfully ignoring the events around him. Luckily, the other group’s leader just appeared amused and not offended by the proceedings.

The leader stepped forward. “First things first, you’re Jun, right?”

Jun nodded. “Yes.”

“What’s the password?” 

Byeongkwan watched as Jun’s eyes widened, before darting to meet his own. All he could do was shake his head slightly in confusion as he wracked his brains for anything JinJin might have told him that had slipped his mind. After a few panicked seconds of replaying his briefing from Astro’s leader (and mentally cursing that he couldn’t look into the past as well as the future), Byeongkwan finally admitted to drawing a blank. “I don’t know,” he hissed to Jun.

Jun laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “We weren’t told about one.” The leader of the other group narrowed his eyes, and Byeongkwan’s muscles tensed. He noticed the other members of his group also shifting restlessly, wondering if it was about to come to blows. Byeongkwan made a mental note to yell at JinJin about this if they managed to get out.

The UNB leader continued to scrutinize them for a few stretched out seconds, when suddenly his expression morphed back into a grin. “Good, because I didn’t give JinJin one!” Byeongkwan blinked, stunned by the 180 degree turn the man’s personality had done in just a few seconds. The mood switch happened so fast, he swore he’d gotten whiplash.

“What,” Donghun said flatly, stating out loud what the rest of them were thinking.

“Yeah, I was just testing you, but you all seem legit,” the leader laughed. He extended a hand to Jun, “The name’s Feeldog.” There was a glint in the other’s eye, and Byeongkwan suddenly had the sense that Feeldog was still testing them in more ways than one.

Jun looked at the rest of his group hesitantly before schooling his expression and shaking Feeldog’s hand. Byeongkwan could practically read his leader’s thoughts of ‘ _Oh god, why is every group we meet full of weirdos_ ’.

Feeldog dropped Jun’s hand. “We’re moving stolen goods, which you probably heard from JinJin. They’re mostly just boxes with household electronics, TV’s, computers, you know,” he waved a hand at some previously unnoticed dark shapes in the room. Byeongkwan couldn’t make out what kinds of electronics they were as large white sheets were draped over all of them. 

“I see,” Jun said.

“Anyway, meet the rest of the crew!” Feeldog reeled off the other UNB members’ names cheerfully, almost too fast for Byeongkwan to catch all of them. He did hear there was another member named Jun, and he prayed it wouldn’t get too confusing.

“Time frame,” one of the UNB members (Euijin maybe?) said, pulling out his phone to show the time.

“Ah, right!” Feeldog exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Anyways, the truck’s around the back. We just need your help moving all this stuff on and off once we get to the warehouse. About the transportation, we’ll have some people in vans both in front of and behind the truck to monitor for anything that might give us trouble like police or heroes.”

Jun nodded, turning back to Byeongkwan and the rest. “Okay guys, let’s help them move this. I want to get home fast, my drama is on later.”

 

* * *

 

The ride was tense, but thankfully uneventful. Jun and Feeldog had made a silent agreement while loading that Donghun wouldn’t be riding in the same vehicle as the boy who’d spoken out earlier (Jun had learned that the other’s name was Junyoung, and was briefly gratified when his fellow members started referring to the new Jun as Jun 2).

“You know,” Jun 2 had joked, “Usually the new models are better.” He then had the nerve to giggle at Jun’s incredibly offended expression.

Now though, he was riding shotgun in the first van with Feeldog in the driver’s seat and Donghun, Yuchan, and two other UNB members in the back, Marco and Hansol. Byeongkwan had gone in the last van, and Sehyoon had hopped aboard the truck. Jun trusted that both of them would be able to handle themselves should any heroes arrive or, worst case scenario, UNB betrayed them. Luckily, it didn’t seem like UNB had any hidden ulterior motives from what Jun could see right then, though not knowing their powers was setting him on edge. He could only hope that UNB was equally in the dark about his own team’s abilities.

“Ten more minutes until we get there,” Feeldog announced to the van, getting everyone’s attention. “There’s going to be a loading dock with some carts and things there already, so we can start unloading immediately into the warehouse once we arrive.”

Jun nodded and turned in his seat to give Donghun a look. Donghun gave him a subtle thumbs up, which Jun hoped meant that he hadn’t noticed any red flags with the UNB members either. Jun then glanced to Feeldog, who gave him a bright grin.

“You know,” Feeldog said, low enough that the rest of the van wouldn’t hear it, “I just wanted to say thanks for helping us out. Our sister group had to bail at the last minute, which wasn’t their fault but still would’ve really set us back if we didn’t have any help.”

Jun paused, not expecting the other’s gratitude. “It’s no problem,” he rushed to say, “if anything, I should be thanking you for paying us.”

Feeldog laughed. “Money tight?” he asked. Jun grimaced, which was apparently enough of an answer. “I hear that. We weren’t doing the greatest. In fact, we’re kind of a makeshift temporary crew.”

Jun’s eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t uncommon for a group to be formed from other villain teams, but it was risky. For heroes it was nearly unheard of because of their sponsors, and so far the only well known temporary hero group in operation was Wanna One. Temporary groups also had to work fast on their plans and heists due to members being called back to their original groups and companies.

“I can practically hear you wondering why we’d do that,” Feeldog said, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “The truth is, all of us formed a temporary group to help our original groups out financially. As for me, I’m working a lot of angles in this time frame. Front, backwards and sideways, nothing’s getting by me-“ He cut himself off as the van suddenly swerved to the right. 

“Agh!” Jun and the rest of the van’s occupant’s yelled in surprise. Donghun’s scream made the windows rattle alarmingly. After the brief jerk, the van straightened out.

“Sorry!” Feeldog called to the backseat. “There was a squirrel in the road!” He turned back to Jun. “What was I saying? Oh yeah, nothing gets by me.”

“Uh-huh,” Jun said faintly, eyes darting down to the lock onthe door. He briefly wondered if he would be able to jump out of the van if necessary. “So you’re doing this for your old team?”

“Yeah,” Feeldog said, “It’s not easy. We might only be able to pull one more job after this.” After five more nerve wracking minutes where Jun seriously considered asking to see Feeldog’s drivers license, the van finally pulled up to a dark warehouse. As soon as the car stopped, all of them piled out. Jun watched as the truck full of electronics and the other van pulled up next to them and all the other members got out and crowded around Feeldog and Jun.

“See any suspicious activity?” Feeldog asked the UNB member who had been driving the last van.

“No heroes or police on the radio,” Daewon replied shaking his head.

“Byeongkwan?” Jun asked meaningfully, tone implying that the other should peek into the future a bit.

“Nothing so far,” Byeongkwan said. “Didn’t see anything in the van.” Feeldog gave Jun a measuring look, as if trying to decipher the other’s words for himself. Eventually, the UNB leader just shrugged.

“Alright, let’s get unloading then,” Feeldog said. “And be careful with the goods! I want this place looking pristine enough to rival a Best Buy.”

 

* * *

 

Though working at a burger joint was far from glamorous, Jinwoo was grateful that Astro’s Burger’s and Fries was not a 24-hour establishment. As it was, he was already going home tired, sore, and smelling like an unhappy meal. He couldn’t imagine doing that around the clock. Technically, as it was explained to Sanha and the rest of them six years ago by some specialist, Jinwoo and the others couldn’t “feel” anything in the human sense of the word as they had “insubstantial forms”. Jinwoo wished his “insubstantial form” would get the memo, because he could do without the sore feet and developing back pain.

The door to the restaurant opened. Jinwoo’s head snapped up from where he’d been wiping down the counter, closing time was in fifteen minutes, and he had to suppress a groan when he saw who’d walked through the door. He dropped his rag carelessly on the counter before leaning on it, chin resting on his hand.

“What, no class field trip to threaten us with?” he asked in a friendly tone, craning his head around to the doorway to see if anyone had followed the NCT leader inside.

“Ah, no, not this time,” Taeyong said, almost sheepishly. Without any other NCT members to look after, the man looked almost awkward with the proceedings. It was almost hard to believe this was the same man Eunwoo had reported as ‘glaring him down’ just the previous night.

“So what can I do for you then?” Jinwoo asked, straightening up. “And if it’s going to be some kind of evil monologue, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You can write any complaints on our website, as I’m sure Rocky would get a kick out of reading them.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Or is this about what’s happening next week?” He left the question hanging in the air. If the NCT leader was surprised by Jinwoo’s final comment, he didn’t make it easy to tell.

“Nothing like that,” Taeyong responded. “I actually came in to order. I made the mistake of telling Jaehyun I was driving home and passing this place, but apparently I was on speaker phone and then the rest of the members asked me to pick up some food.”

Jinwoo laughed and dropped his tense stance. “Rough. Alright,” he stretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles. Taeyong winced. “Hit me with it.” And Taeyong did, pulling out his phone and reading off a list of orders as fast as Jinwoo could punch them in. By the end of it, Jinwoo was shaking his head and trying to do the finger stretches that he remembered from a YouTube video on recommended workplace exercises. He pinned the order in the window leading back to the kitchen.

“What the fu-?!” He heard Myungjun shout.

Jinwoo turned back to the cash register to look at the bill, only to raise his eyebrows once he took in the final total. “Is it just me, or are there even more orders than usual?”

There was a beat of silence before Taeyong’s easy smile cracked. The NCT leader buried his face in his hands and let out a long groan. Jinwoo’s eyes widened in alarm, but it didn’t appear that the other man planned on starting anything in the restaurant. If anything, Taeyong looked ready to curl into a ball on the floor (which Jinwoo definitely didn’t recommend given that they hadn’t been able to mop since lunch time).

“There’s three more of them!” Taeyong exclaimed, voice slightly muffled. “Three! Do you know how many people that means total?! Twenty one! We’re practically hauling around two soccer teams!” His breaths started coming quicker, causing Jinwoo to become concerned that the other was hyperventilating.

“Oh, uh,” Jinwoo floundered, not quite sure how to respond. Despite the fact that he and Taeyong were on opposite sides of this conflict, he found himself feeling slightly bad for the guy. Being responsible for such a large group couldn’t be easy. He briefly considered patting Taeyong on the shoulder, but stopped mid-movement wondering if doing so might be over stepping his boundaries. Luckily for Jinwoo, the NCT leader managed to pull himself together after a few deep breaths. “Have you tried, um, speaking to anyone about it?” Jinwoo asked as gently as he could.

Taeyong lifted his head and scrubbed at his eyes. “Kun, a little?” his voice coming out still slightly hysteric. “But I don’t want to burden the others with it. I considered asking Mar- I mean, the NCT Dream leader, but he already has so much on his plate.” Jinwoo decided not to tell Taeyong that he already knew the names of the NCT Dream members, as that might stress the other out even more and send him into another round of worries.

“Well…” Jinwoo said, shifting his weight. “Look, I know we’re not exactly on the same team at the moment, but if you ever want to meet on neutral ground and talk leader to leader, you know where to find me. I can also help you get in touch with any therapists that specialize in helping people with our, ah, occupations if you want.”

Taeyong blinked, clearly not expecting Jinwoo to offer his help. Jinwoo was already berating himself for offering to help the enemy, but Taeyong looked so exhausted that Jinwoo thought this was the least he could do. He just hoped that the other members would see this the same way.

Taeyong sighed. “Thanks. I appreciate that.” He offered Jinwoo a small smile.

Unfortunately, the momentary truce was broken when Myungjun kicked open the door from the kitchen with five bags of fast food under his arms. He slammed them on the counter with as much force as he could muster. “There!” he exclaimed, giving Taeyong a dirty look, “Twenty one separate orders,” he slapped a receipt on the counter, “And your receipt! Have fun ribbon dancing with that!”

 

* * *

 

The unloading was going smoothly from what Yuchan could see. The UNB members, despite apparently being a temporary group, worked together solidly as a team. Yuchan, on the other hand, focused on staying out of everyone’s way and only helped to carry a few smaller things. He dreaded the thought of somehow messing everything up again. Sehyoon shot Yuchan a concerned look, but Yuchan plastered a fake smile on his face and waved the other off.

As he was hanging in the back, watching Donghun help Hojung haul something off the truck, he noticed a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly, heart racing, but relaxed when he saw it was only Byeongkwan. Yuchan frowned as he watched the other boy disappear around the warehouse, but no one else seemed to notice.

Yuchan bit his lip and debated just going back to helping the others. If Byeongkwan was sneaking around, there was probably a reason for it, and Yuchan tagging along might mess it up. However, Byeongkwan had actually looked nervous in that moment, which was a look that Yuchan wasn’t used to seeing on his face. Byeongkwan’s ability to see into the future meant that he was very rarely surprised, and anything that worried him that much usually preceded something horrible.

“This is a bad idea,” Yuchan muttered, but he squared his shoulders and snuck over to where Byeongkwan had disappeared. He frowned when he saw no trace of the other. After a few minutes of searching, Yuchan was about ready to call it off and tell Jun, when he noticed that a garage door was up at the warehouse three units down. Yuchan jogged over to it quietly, head whipping around for any signs of threats.

When he got to the open warehouse, he looked inside for any sign of Byeongkwan. The warehouse itself was dark, and he could barely see anything. He nearly ran into a shelf as he walked through it. “Byeongkwan?” he risked calling softly.

“Gotcha!” Someone grabbed Yuchan’s arm from behind, and he gasped. He immediately went into panic mode, the entire warehouse lighting up in an instant. Yuchan flailed out his free arm wildly and managed to hit whoever had grabbed him, who released Yuchan with a yelp of pain.

Yuchan spun around to see who had attacked him, ready to let out a barrage of punches, but he stopped mid-swing. “ _Jangjun?!_ ”

“His group’s been following us since we left UNB’s meeting place,” a voice said. Yuchan looked around and saw Byeongkwan leaning against the wall to his left. “They were probably planning to ambush us here and they split up all around these warehouses. The rest of his group will probably come running here because of your light.” Yuchan felt his stomach sink, realizing he’d messed up yet again. Why couldn’t he do anything right?

“That’s right!” Jangjun said, rubbing his shoulder where Yuchan managed to hit him. “So all of you should just give up now!”

Byeongkwan rolled his eyes. “No way. Look around, genius, we’ve got bigger problems to worry about.”

In the excitement, Yuchan hadn’t even noticed what the warehouse around them housed. But now, with Byeongkwan’s prompting, he took in the rows and rows of shelves with complicated looking devices lined up along them. The shelves extended all the way throughout the warehouse, revealing hundreds of the devices. Jangjun frowned and got closer to one of them, before jumping back in alarm.

“What?” Yuchan asked, confused.

“Those are explosives!” Jangjun said faintly, quickly backing away from the shelves and pressing up against the wall of the warehouse. Yuchan’s eyes widened and he followed, running over to where Byeongkwan was. He had no idea how powerful the explosives were, but with the sheer amount of them, Yuchan could imagine rows of city blocks being leveled.

“Relax,” Byeongkwan reassured him. “They aren’t active yet.” He pointed to a digital readout on one of the devices, the glowing red letters reading ‘Unarmed’.

“Wh- what are you planning?” Jangjun asked, looking between Byeongkwan and Yuchan frantically. He was clearly trying to go for commanding, but just ended up looking scared. Yuchan couldn’t blame him. He felt sick just trying to comprehend how much damage the warehouse exploding could do.

“They’re not our devices,” Byeongkwan snapped at the Golden Child member. At the other’s disbelieving look, he huffed. “Look, if you guys had done any research on this place before trying to ambush us, you would know that a lot of villain groups use these warehouses. I only heard about this place in particular because JinJin asked me to check it out. He was right to be worried it seems.” Jangjun looked a bit pale as the words sunk in.

“Wait,” Yuchan said, “Then who does this warehouse belong to?”

Byeongkwan grimaced. “NCT.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eunwoo: "Should we really just let Taeyong go like that?"  
> JinJin: "I'm sure he's fine."  
> Eunwoo: "That's not what I meant."  
> Moon Bin: "He just dropped a milkshake in the parking lot."  
> JinJin: "...he's stronger than he looks, probably."  
> Moon Bin: "He's crying."  
> Sanha: "Should we go help him?"  
> MJ, at full volume across the restaurant: "Not it!"


	13. The Disappearance of Astro

“We’ve got you this time!” a voice triumphantly cried out. Yuchan turned to see the rest of Golden Child racing into the warehouse, only to pause with confused expressions when they saw Jangjun huddled against the wall with Yuchan and Byeongkwan. “Uh…” Unfortunately, stopping in the only entrance of the warehouse wasn’t the best idea for Golden Child, as the rest of Yuchan’s crew and what looked like all of UNB were right on their heels, most likely following Yuchan’s flash of light, and soon heroes and villains alike ended up in a giant rookie pile on the ground. 

“OW!” Someone, most likely Donghun, yelled causing the shelves to rattle alarmingly.

“Shhhhh!” Yuchan hissed to the tangled mass of people on the ground. There were a few offended noises in return. “These are explosives!” Everyone froze at that, and Yuchan was briefly entertained by the sheer number of eyes darting around the warehouse.

“Well, it’s not like we’re going to wake them up,” one of the Golden Child members said, though he was whispering. After Yuchan’s announcement, the groups on the floor managed to get to their feet in a much more subdued manner, all thoughts of attacking each other seemingly gone in the wake of this new dilemma. Yuchan thought he even saw Jun unknowingly helping the Golden Child leader, Daeyeol if Yuchan recalled, to his feet.

“This is NCT’s warehouse,” Byeongkwan said, breaking the tense silence. “We don’t know what they’re planning to do with all these explosives either.”

“Really?” Daeyeol said, looking suspicious.

“Of course not!” Byeongkwan replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you really think we’d lead you here and tell you what these were if we were on their side?”

“Maybe you’re just really bad villains,” Tag suggested bluntly.

“I mean we are, but that’s beside the point,” Byeongkwan said.

“Well, we have to do _something_ ,” Jangjun cut in, glancing around the rows of shelves as if trying to calculate just how many bombs there were. “Maybe we could steal them…” he trailed off, biting his lip.

Feeldog shook his head. “I don’t want to touch any of these things with a ten foot pole if I don’t know how they work. There’s not enough room in the truck anyway to transport even half of them.”

“Seconded,” Daeyeol said, looking around at the rest of his group. Some of the younger members seemed to be clustering together near Jangjun at the walls. “They could have rigged them as well to go off or something if we try to tamper with them.”

“So are we just supposed to leave them here then?” Yuchan wondered.

“Seems like there’s nothing else we can do,” Jun said. 

“I can talk back with Ast- our contacts,” Byeongkwan said, tripping over Astro’s name.

Daeyeol rolled his eyes. “You can just say ‘Astro’. All of us are pretty well acquainted with them at this point.” He then shuddered slightly, making Yuchan raise an eyebrow.

Byeongkwan blinked. “Right. Okay. I’ll talk to Jinjin.” There was a pause.

“Does this mean they aren’t arresting us?” Kijung asked.

The Golden Child member next to Sehyoon jolted, as if suddenly remembering he and the rookie villain were on opposite sides. “You’re under arrest,” Jaehyun said as he turned to Sehyoon, though the inflection at the end of his sentence went up making it come across as more of a question.

Sehyoon cocked an eyebrow. “No, I'm not.”

Jaehyun shuffled over to Daeyeol. “What do we do now?” he whispered.

“We aren’t arresting them,” Daeyeol replied, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“We don’t even have the authority to do that,” Bomin said. He then grunted as he was presumably elbowed by another Golden Child member.

“Don’t tell them that!”

“Anyway,” Daeyeol said, before his group could start bickering. “We’ll let you all go for now, but we want to stay updated on this situation. If NCT is really going to use all these explosives…well, I think we both have a common interest in not finding out what kind of damage they would cause.” Jun and Feeldog looked at each other.

“Agreed,” Jun said finally. “We need to cut off whatever this is while we all still can. For now, we’re all on the same side.”

 

* * *

 

“And you’re sure the entire warehouse was full of these?” Jinjin asked, looking slightly paler than normal. He was fiddling with a straw wrapper on the table, belying just how nervous he was. Eunwoo, who was sitting next to the Jinjin in the booth looked just as disturbed by the news. Though the atmosphere in Astro’s Burgers and Fries was as bright as usual, all the other customers and employees going around obliviously, to Byeongkwan it felt like a cloud was hanging over their table.

“Positive,” Byeongkwan said, nodding. “The warehouse was just full of shelves as far back as I could see. One of the Golden Child members estimated there were about a couple hundred or so. They were pretty sizable too.” He used his hands to illustrate something roughly the size of a microwave.

Jinjin shook his head. “Our estimates were off then,” he admitted, “we thought they only had a few of these devices. I have no idea what they’re planning to do with this amount.”

Byeongkwan’s heart sank a bit. “You guys really have no idea what we can do about it then?”

Eunwoo shrugged. “Even with Golden Child and UNB helping, this is out of our league. We might have to call in a big hero group to handle this.”

“How big are we talking?” Byeongkwan asked.

“Like Seventeen or EXO level big,” Eunwoo said. “Maybe both if our intel on how powerful those explosives are is correct.”

Byeongkwan drew in a breath. Those heroes were usually only called in for city wide disaster level emergencies. “You really think NCT is going to demolish the city?”

Jinjin frowned. “I can’t even begin to guess their motives. Honestly, to me they don’t seem to be the kind of group who’d want this level of destruction, but who knows?”

Eunwoo stood up from the booth. “I’m going to call ONF. If anyone knows anything about explosives, it’s them.”

Jinjin nodded. “We’ll figure something out,” he said confidently, though he was betrayed by the nervous look in his eye. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

* * *

 

Jinwoo’s mind had been racing since his earlier conversation with Byeongkwan. Eunwoo had contacted ONF and was currently looking for other groups that might have any relevant knowledge. Moonbin had also come to Jinwoo earlier that day with some information about NCT recently that Jinwoo had no idea what to do with. The Astro leader was glad they were closing soon, because they definitely needed to have a group conversation as to what their next move should be and, most importantly, how to keep Sanha safe in the midst of all of this.

He almost missed the bell jingling as someone walked in fifteen minutes before closing, but when he looked up he felt his stomach drop. “Taeyong,” he said, faux cheerfully. He tried for a casual tone, but missed it by a mile. “And you’ve brought your group this time.”

Taeyong actually looked apologetic for a brief moment before his face became expressionless again. “We know you know.”

Jinwoo raised an eyebrow. “Oh, do you know? I’m not sure you know what we know or else you’d know that we don’t know, unless you think we do know because we know what our friends know.”

“Wait, what?” one of the NCT members whispered to another. The other just shrugged.

“We know you know about the warehouse,” Taeyong clarified before Jinwoo could formulate an even more convoluted sentence.

“Ah,” Jinwoo said, eyes darting around the restaurant. It was thankfully empty except for the NCT and Astro members, though Jinwoo noted that there were NCT members covering every exit, Jaehyun at the one closest to him and Ten at the other door near Moonbin. Curse them for having such a big group that they could pull off flanking maneuvers.

“Yeah, so we’re going to have to ask you to keep your nose out of it,” another NCT member near the order counter said.

Jinwoo squinted at the member as he tried to recall the other’s name. “Listen Donut.”

“Doyoung.”

“I’ll give you guys some credit. You’ve got a lot of guts to try and challenge us in our own territory, but you might want to stop trying to threaten us before we take offense,” Jinwoo said. He looked around as casually as he could, but tilted his head minutely when he locked eyes with Minhyuk. The other Astro member nodded slightly before subtly pushing Sanha toward the back room. Hopefully Sanha would be able to hide there and wait it out there until NCT left.

“If you don’t back off, we’ll make you back off,” Taeyong said. “We’re prepared to take you on right now.”

Jinwoo straightened up and met the other Astro members’ eyes before turning back to Taeyong. “Oh, are you?” The pressure in the room suddenly increased, courtesy of Eunwoo. One of the NCT members moved toward Eunwoo, but Jinwoo waved a hand and all the NCT members slowed down like they were moving through syrup. Jinwoo walked up to one of the villains stuck in slow motion and patted him on the shoulder.

Suddenly, Jinwoo saw something move out of the corner of his eye and watched in disbelief as a hand passed through the wall from outside the restaurant behind where the alarm clock was and pulled it right through the brick. In his shock, Jinwoo released his hold on the NCT members, all of them returning to life at normal speed. He looked out the large restaurant windows to see one of the new NCT members holding the clock, well out of range of his powers.

“Are you willing to back off now?” Taeyong asked, tilting his head to the clock outside. There was another flash of regret in the NCT leader’s eyes that was gone as quickly as it came.

Jinwoo gritted his teeth. He knew that none of the Astro members would be able to get there in time to retrieve the clock before it was activated or, heaven forbid, destroyed. He could only hope that Taeyong didn’t know exactly what it did. “It’s too late. We’ve already passed on the information and someone will stop you.”

“I doubt that,” Ten snorted from the other exit.

“Last chance,” Taeyong said, his eyes almost desperate for Jinwoo to agree.

Jinwoo crossed his arms. He looked out at the NCT member with the alarm clock before going back to Taeyong, and he frowned as he remembered what Moonbin had said earlier about the group. “Are you even the ones calling the shots?”

Taeyong drew in a breath sharply, and he gave a jerky nod to the NCT member outside. The boy hit the button on top of the alarm clock, and Astro vanished.

 

* * *

 

Byeongkwan had stewed in anxiety all night after he left Astro’s Burgers and Fries until Sehyoon had gotten so fed up with his tossing and turning that he’d agreed to go back to the restaurant the next morning. And so, as soon as the clock had ticked over to the burger joint’s opening time, Byeongkwan was out of their apartment door like a shot with Sehyoon following him with a long suffering expression.

As soon as they arrived at the restaurant, Byeongkwan knew something was wrong. All the lights were off even though the door was wide open. As they entered hesitantly, Byeongkwan saw that there were no customers and, more alarmingly, no members of Astro to be found in the place. They were both on high alert as they walked around the place.

Byeongkwan closed his eyes and searched through the future for any kind of explanation, pausing when he saw something moving behind a curtain in the back room twenty minutes from now. He opened his eyes. “Someone’s in the back room,” he whispered to Sehyoon.

The other nodded, motioning for Byeongkwan to take the lead. Byeongkwan moved toward the curtain in the back of the restaurant where they’d had Jangjun’s memories wiped before. He briefly wondered if he and Sehyoon were about to become the dumb kids in the first five minutes of a horror movie that got horribly disemboweled or whatever by a ghost.

The black curtain in front of them wavered slightly, and Byeongkwan could hear some small noises like muffled crying. “Oh my god, this place is haunted,” Sehyoon breathed, eyes wide.

“We don’t know that,” Byeongkwan hissed back, “There could be an explanation.” He took a deep breath before seizing one end of the curtain. “I’m going to pull it back on three.” He whispered. Sehyoon made a face. “One, two, three!” He pulled the curtain back and someone screamed, making him scream as well. He jumped backward, releasing the curtain and plowing into Sehyoon, knocking both of them into the ground. “Don’t eat me!” he yelled.

“I’m too pretty to die!” Sehyoon added, scrambling to get out from under Byeongkwan.

“Please don’t hurt me!” the ghost screamed at exactly the same time.

“Wait, what?” Byeongkwan paused. His eyes adjusted a bit to the darkness of the back room to see Sanha curled up in a ball under the table. “Sanha? It’s just me. It’s Byeongkwan.” He got to his feet and helped Sehyoon up too, his heart rate calming down slightly. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

The boy uncurled a bit. “Byeongkwan?”

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan said. “Sehyoon is here too. What’s wrong? Where’s the rest of your group?”

Sanha flinched. “They took them.”

“Who took them?” Sehyoon asked.

“NCT did,” Sanha said. “They came here yesterday to make us stop interfering with whatever they were planning. Then they took the alarm clock.”

Both Byeongkwan and Sehyoon drew in a harsh breath. “And did you know what they were planning?” Byeongkwan asked.

Sanha hesitated, looking around the dark room like someone might be listening. “Yes.”

“What is it?” Byeongkwan asked as gently as he could, though his mind was racing. Sanha just shook his head. “Look, why don’t you come out from under there and we can talk about it at our apartment. It’s much safer there. Wait, you said they came by yesterday, right?” Something like dread curled in his stomach as a thought struck him.

Sanha nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. Byeongkwan’s eyes had finally adjusted enough that he could take in the dark circles and tear tracks on the boy’s face. He looked alarmingly like he had when the alarm clock had been taken for a few days by BTS, despite it only having been a night.

“Have you been here all night?!” he asked in horror. With that, there was no more talk about NCT. It took another fifteen minutes of persuading from Sehyoon and Byeongkwan (the latter apologizing the whole time), but they finally managed to get Sanha out from under the table. 

Another twenty minutes and they were sitting in their apartment. Jun had immediately thrown a fuss when he saw how shaken and tired Sanha was, and had launched into a lecture on Byeongkwan and Sehyoon until Sanha had cut in and explained that it was NCT’s doing. Jun was still understandably worried and soon Sanha was sitting in the group’s tiny living room, piled in every blanket Jun and Donghun could find and drinking a mug of hot chocolate.

“If it’s still too hard to tell us you don’t have to,” Byeongkwan said later, feeling guilty for questioning the boy so much earlier.

Sanha shook his head. “No, I…I want to.” He let out a sigh. “We contacted ONF about the explosives, and they’re trying to work out how to disarm them right now. We discovered something else though when Moonbin tried digging around for NCT’s sponsors.” He glanced up at the rookie villains to see if they were all still paying attention. “You know how EXO is one of the biggest hero groups now, right?”

“Right,” Jun said, furrowing his brow at the sudden change of subject.

“The company they’re under is SM,” Sanha said. The villains all nodded. This was fairly common knowledge. Most hero groups were open about their sponsors for the sake of transparency to the general public.

“Who do you think sponsors NCT?” Sanha asked.

They all looked at each other. “Most villain groups don’t reveal that sort of thing,” Yuchan said.

“Right,” Sanha agreed. “Well, we found out that NCT’s sponsor is…” he paused, “SM.” There was a moment of silence as everyone took that in.

“What?!” Byeongkwan was the first to blurt out.

“That explains how they always have so much money,” Donghun said, shellshocked. “SM is one of the biggest companies in existence!”

“Why would a company sponsor both a villain and a hero group?” Yuchan asked, baffled.

“Moonbin thought they were trying to get NCT to cause some huge disaster so EXO would have to stop them,” Sanha replied. “EXO gets good press for saving the city and NCT gets a huge villainous reputation boost. Win-win scenario.”

“Does EXO and NCT know about this?” Jun asked.

Sanha shrugged. “As far as we can tell, no. Moonbin had to do quite a bit of digging and maybe even a little bit of, uh, illegal hacking to find this out. Chances are they don’t even know where their funding is really coming from, and they’re just getting orders.”

“So maybe we can persuade them not to go through with this then,” Byeongkwan theorized.

“Or at least stop them if we can intercept their orders,” Sehyoon agreed.

“Alright,” Jun said, “New plan. We have to figure out where NCT is getting those orders from and put a stop to them.” He turned to Sanha. “Can you let us know whenever ONF gets back to you about disarming the devices?”

Sanha nodded. “Yeah. That should be coming in either today or tomorrow.” 

“Good,” Jun clapped his hands together. “Until then, we’re calling in every connection we can to try and derail this whole thing.”

“You know,” Sehyoon said thoughtfully, “It’s almost like we’re heroes again.”

“Except less broke,” Yuchan said, “And with more of a threat of imminent doom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moonbin, from within the alarm clock: "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good."
> 
> Jinwoo: "As soon as we have a physical form again, you're on cleanup duty for a month."
> 
> Mark, who just watched Astro disappear into thin air: "Oh my god, we killed them."


	14. Citywide Destruction is Delayed by Microsoft Word

Donghun rubbed his eyes, but the glowing screen in front of him remained just as blurry. “Uh, what time is it?” he asked, voice rusty from disuse. He turned to look at Jun, the other hunched over his phone on his own bed.

Jun looked over, and Donghun could see the dark circles under his eyes. “It's only...4 AM? Huh, would you look at that.” The leader flopped onto his back, phone resting on his stomach.

“Did you find anything?” Donghun asked as he closed the lid of his laptop. Jun grabbed one of the pillows on his bed and covered his face with it before letting out a long muffled groan in lieu of an answer. “Okay, we’re just gonna give that a soft no.”

“Mfrphg.”

“What?”

Jun removed the pillow. “Do you think we should just call it on the online research? The only person any of us know that could track them digitally is currently stuck in the dream realm, or wherever the heck Moonbin and the rest of Astro go when they’re not in our plane of existence.”

“Yeah, I think this might be a dead end for us,” Donghun agreed. “Looks like we’ll have to do things the old fashioned way.”

“Alright, let’s break into their house,” Jun said, throwing his hands up.

 

* * *

 

“You know this is dumb, right?” Byeongkwan asked, raising an eyebrow pointedly in Jun’s direction. “Like even beyond breaking into Golden Child’s house level dumb?”

“Yes, but we don’t have any better options,” Jun said patiently.

“What about what ONF told us? We know how to deactivate them now.” Sanha said, fiddling with the Roomba that was whirring happily in his lap. Jun noted bitterly that Sehyoon had removed the kitchen knife from the robot, something the older boy had never done at Jun’s request before. Sanha had been staying with the rookie villains ever since Astro’s Burgers & Fries had been attacked, worried that NCT might target his family if he went home. After a few frantic phone calls with his parents asking where the hell he’d been and whether he was having nightmares, it looked like Sanha was staying indefinitely until the situation was dealt with. It was a small mercy that at least the alarm clock was off so Sanha wouldn’t have to stay awake to stave off his nightmares, though it looked like the the boy was getting little sleep despite that.

Jun shook his head. “I called Feeldog this morning to ask him to check out the warehouse, and he said the explosives had already been moved. They could be planted anywhere in the city at this point. There’s no way we’d be able to deactivate all of them in time.”

Donghun nodded. “We have to go to their place and cut off their orders or subdue them somehow.”

“How are we going to do that?” Byeongkwan crossed his arms. “There’s like twenty one of them! Even us and Golden Child combined wouldn’t outnumber them!” He paused. “Do you think they all share a bathroom?”

“How is that relevant?” Jun asked.

“We could lock their bathroom door shut somehow and refuse to open it until they give us the remote control or whatever device they’re using to set the bombs off.”

“I know I’d hand over the remote pretty fast,” Sehyoon agreed.

“No,” Jun said, crossing his arms in front of him in an X form.

“Yuchan, you’ve been pretty quiet,” Donghun frowned at their youngest. “Any ideas?” The last thing he wanted was for their youngest to retreat even more now that he was just starting to recover his confidence a bit.

Said boy grimaced. “Just one, but it might not work out.”

“Just a little while ago we were breaking into Bangtan’s house only to be chased out by a killer robot bunny with buzz saws,” Jun said drily, “Anything is a viable option at this point.”

“What if we forced them to move out of their house for a while?” Yuchan suggested. “That way, it’d be harder for them to get organized and especially for them to find a place to stay since there are so many of them.”

“How would we manage that?” Sehyoon asked.

“Like flooding their house?” Byeongkwan theorized.

“Destroying the building?” Donghun suggested.

Sehyoon straightened up. “Working to create a black hole so large and powerful that it sucks their entire property into the void of space?” Everyone stared at the rapper.

"What goes on inside your head?" Donghun asked, eyes wide.

“Or…” Yuchan said, snapping everyone back to him.

“Sorry, what were you going to say?” Jun asked.

“We could do this.” Yuchan said, grabbing the laptop from Donghun. He opened the lid and started typing furiously while the rest of them shoved each other out of the way to see what he was working on. Jun only managed to catch a few brief glimpses before Byeongkwan literally sat on him, and then his primary focus was on trying not to suffocate into the couch cushions. After a few minutes of screwing around on a Word document, Yuchan held up the laptop so they could all see. Jun unceremoniously shoved Byeongkwan off while the other was distracted by the screen. The younger narrowed his eyes at Jun before turning back and quickly scanning what Yuchan had written.

“Huh,” Byeongkwan said, “That could work.”

Sehyoon nodded. “A lot easier than the black hole idea.”

 

* * *

 

“Eviction notice?!” Taeyong yelled, eyebrows shooting up as he almost dropped his armful of groceries. Behind him, Doyoung whirled on Yuta.

“I thought you said that you sent our rent payment in!” he accused.

“I did!” Yuta said defensively, holding up a hand. He reached past Taeyong to grab the notice off the door. His frown grew as he quickly read through the letter. “It says they changed the locks.”

“Don’t they have to legally give us at least a few days warning before they do that?” Donghyuck whined at the back, looking like he was starting to struggle under his own load of groceries. Taeyong shifted his groceries to one arm and dug around in his pockets for his key, determined to try the locks anyway. He groaned when the key didn’t turn.

“They really locked us out,” he said in disbelief.

“This is all the bad karma we have from killing Astro,” Mark said, looking paler than usual. “Oh my god, I knew that was a bad idea.”

“We didn’t kill them!” Donghyuck said.

“Then where did they go?!” Mark threw his hands up and knocked a bag of groceries out of Sicheng’s arms.

“Shit, that’s the eggs!” Doyoung said, reaching out to try and hold the eggs midair with his telekinesis. Unfortunately, Donghyuck was thinking along similar lines as he also stretched out his hand, only for the bag of groceries to go up in flames. “What did you do that for?!”

“I panicked!” Donghyuck said, trying to extinguish the hovering ball of flames as Doyoung jostled the back up and down to try and fan the embers out. The fires flickered briefly before slowly dying out. Sicheng looked between Donghyuck and Doyoung and then to the ruined groceries that landed on the ground with a plop.

“We’re going to need more eggs,” the Chinese boy said.

Taeyong felt like he was about to cry for the fifth time that day, but he was a leader dammit. If he could handle not having a breakdown in the grocery store bread aisle, he would definitely not have a breakdown in front of his house. He let out a long breath. “Okay,” he turned to the other members. “Everyone back in the vans. We’re going to have to call our sponsor and find a motel or something until we can get this sorted out.” There was some grumbling, but everyone eventually managed to get back onto the vans while Taeyong shook his head.

He looked at the scorched bag of groceries and then back to the locked door. “God, I wish I hadn’t evaporated JinJin.”

 

* * *

 

“I…I can’t believe that worked,” Daeyeol said, sounding torn between being impressed and questioning all of his life choices up to that point. Jun patted the other on the back, as he had been there himself the first few weeks he’d gotten to know the brilliant and illogical ideas that made up Kang Yuchan. “That shouldn’t have worked.”

“It’s easier if you just accept it,” Jun said getting to his feet and, more importantly, out of the bush that they’d been sitting in. The villain let out a whistle and watched as three more Golden Child members and Byeongkwan popped up from some hedges on the other side of the lawn. He spared a glance at the inconspicuous vans full of the rest of his team along with the other Golden Child members sitting a couple of blocks away that NCT hopefully hadn’t noticed in their rush to find a functioning fridge for their groceries. “Now let’s go. We probably don’t have much time before they realize something’s up.”

Daeyeol shook his head one more time and nodded. “Alright. I’ll get Seungyoon to freeze the locks and–“  
“Actually, I already unlocked it,” Sehyoon said, dropping from the tree behind Jun where he’d been stationed. “I was already making sure that the key wouldn’t turn properly, so I just went ahead and unlocked everything while I was at it.” The present Golden Child members stared at Sehyoon, and Jun could hear Donghun snickering through his earpiece.

“Why did it take you so long to become super villains?” Jangjun asked. “You’re all perfect for it, no offense.”

“Some taken,” Donghun grumbled over headset.

“We wanted to do the right thing,” Byeongkwan said, giving the other boy a magazine worthy smile.

“Really?” Seungyoon said, crossing his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow.

“And no one was looking to sponsor a villain group,” Byeongkwan amended. The ice user snorted. 

“Anyway, breaking in?” Jun said, getting their attention again. He motioned toward the front door and they all rushed past a charred grocery bag of ruined eggs and slipped inside as quickly as possible, shutting the door behind them.

“We should spread out,” Daeyeol suggested. “We’ll want to cover as much of the place as we can.”

“We have about twenty five minutes before I see any indication of them realizing something is wrong,” Byeongkwan reported.

“Alright.” Jun nodded. “Meet back here in fifteen minutes so we have enough time to get to the vans.” Everyone made various noises of assent before pairing off and scurrying down different hallways. Sehyoon, Jun, and Byeongkwan located a stairway to the basement, which Jun personally thought was their best bet. Villain groups did shady things in their basements, right?

“It’s so dark down here,” Byeongkwan grumbled. “I wish Yuchan were here.”

“Did you hear that, Yuchan?” Donghun asked over their headsets, “Byeongkwan misses you.” 

“Byeongkwan should know to use the flashlight app on his cellphone to find the light switch,” Yuchan deadpanned over the headsets. The trio froze before Byeongkwan pulled out his phone and did exactly that.

“We were getting to that,” he said.

Yuchan laughed. “And I’m the Queen of England.”

“I’m going to steal one of your corgis then.” Sehyoon said. “Wow Jr. needs a friend.”

“Guys,” Jun said. “Not the time.”

Sehyoon finally located the light switch and flipped it on, making them all blink. Byeongkwan shut his phone flashlight off as they adjusted to the new lights. 

From what Jun could see, the basement had a number of couches and a television with various gaming consoles surrounding it in the front area. The space was a neutral cream color with no distinctive designs or decorations, but it was clear that a number of boys lived there. It smelled like it too.

“Oh god,” Jun muttered, wrinkling his nose at some half eaten takeout left on the low coffee table next to the latest Nintendo title and the socks left in between the couch cushions. Byeongkwan rolled his eyes next to the leader.

“We have to find their computer or _something_ that connects them to their sponsor.”

“I can’t help my reactions!” Jun threw his hands up, but continued to look around the room. After carefully lifting some pillows and couch cushions (and some of the dirty clothes, which Jun did with great revulsion), all three of them came up empty and proceeded to move to the other half of the basement. This area appeared to be a game room. It had a ping pong table, pool table, and what could only be an Easy Bake oven.

“Whoa,” Byeongkwan said, hand hovering over the Easy Bake oven. “I wish we had one of these.”

“It’d be better than all the ramen,” Sehyoon agreed. They all continued to poke around the room, Jun even desperately checking inside the Easy Bake oven for any sign of the orders from NCT’s sponsors, but all of them came up empty.

“Maybe Golden Child found something?” Byeongkwan said as they trudged back up the stares. Jun’s hopes were immediately shattered by the discouraged looks on the others’ faces.

“Nothing,” Daeyeol reported, brow furrowed.

“We found a few possible things that we couldn’t really tell what they are, but nothing like a computer,” Jangjun said, gesturing to Jibeom who held up a bag stuffed with large objects that Jun guessed were electronics.

“If not at home, then where are they getting their orders?” Jun asked, pushing his hair out of his face impatiently.

“No more time,” Daeyeol said, we have to get back to the vans and come up with another idea. The seven of them slipped out of the house just as quietly as they had entered before sprinting toward the vans. Jun didn’t relax until Donghun had the van peeling out of the neighborhood, the other van with the other half of Golden Child and Yuchan following at a distance.

Daeyeol dialed a number before putting his phone on speaker. “Well, that was a bust,” came Seungmin’s voice.

Donghun hummed from the driver’s seat. “Maybe not.” All of the members in the car turned to him. “I had a thought while we were waiting for all of you to come back. One of the members in NCT is a mind reader, right?”

“Right,” Jun said slowly.

“Well, what if he’s getting the orders by walking past one of the sponsors or something and then he just tells the rest of the team? That way they don’t have to worry about being overheard in public or leaving a paper or digital trail.” There was a brief silence as the two vans processed this.

“Oh my god,” Yuchan muttered. “We’re idiots.”

“There’s no guarantee that this is how it works though,” Daeyeol argued.

“No, but it would make sense,” Jun said. “And it’s also the only thing we have to go on right now unless we find something in that bag Jibeom’s got.” 

Jibeom made a face. “Doubtful.”

Daeyeol frowned. “It’s still quite a stretch. If we’re wrong…” They all exchanged hesitant looks.

“We can’t think like that,” Jun said, shaking his head. “We have to hope this is the solution.”

“So what are we going to do then?” Daeyeol asked, resigning himself to the idea. “Kidnap the mindreader so they can’t get orders?” Jangjun went pale at that suggestion.

Byeongkwan shrugged. “Hey, if it works.”

Jun leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, already feeling a headache starting to build. “We have to stop kidnapping kids before we get a reputation.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeno, inside the Super 8 motel room he's sharing with the rest of NCT Dream: I think someone's talking about me
> 
> Donghyuck: Shut up Jeno, and help me eat all this ice cream before it melts


	15. This is the End (Or at least a Major Inconvenience)

As it turned out, Jun didn’t need to worry as much as he thought he would about planning a kidnapping, or having a run in with the police, or maybe even going to see a specialist to realign his morals, as their opportunity to intercept NCT came with a sudden stroke of good fortune. In NCT’s rush to secure a motel room for twenty one people, there wasn’t time for the large group to cover their tracks as well as they might have liked to, and one of the members of Golden Child was able to lock down their location in a matter of hours.

“Super 8 motel, right on the side of the main road downtown before you get on the highway,” Joochan said, fingers flying over the keys of his laptop. “Give me a few more minutes and I’ll have the room numbers.” He was hunched over the screen as Jun and Daeyeol looked over his shoulder to see what he was doing. The rest of Golden Child and Jun’s team were spread out around the room (Golden Child’s house since Jun doubted they would all fit in his and his friends’ cramped apartment).

From what Jun could see, Sehyoon was starting to dig through Jibeom’s bag of stolen electronics with said boy along with Seungyoon and Jaehyun, looking for anything that might be useful. Yuchan was speaking with Donghyun and Bomin (either showing each other some fighting techniques or having a dance battle, Jun wasn’t really sure). And finally, Donghun was quietly discussing strategies with Jangjun, Tag and Seungmin. Jun was just relieved that they all appeared to be getting along well despite the fact that they were technically on opposite sides.

Jun looked to the other leader. “Are you sure you guys shouldn’t be the villains instead?”

Daeyeol grimaced. “We’re hacking for the greater good.”

“So what’s our plan then?” Byeongkwan asked, striding over to them and talking around a mouthful of potato chips. Jun made a face, making the other wave a hand apologetically. “Run in, grab the kid and throw a smoke bomb behind us?”

Jun dropped his head into his hands. “I was hoping for something a little more subtle.”

“We’ll have to try and separate him from the group,” Daeyeol agreed. “I’m not interested in taking on all twenty one members.”

“Got it!” Joochan gained all of their attention in an instant. “So they’re split up into four rooms. One is for the younger kids and it’s got,” he counted quickly. “Wow, seven people including the mind reader.”

“Someone’s gotta be sleeping in the bathtub,” Byeongkwan remarked.

“But this also means that there’s only seven people we have to deal with, at least,” Daeyeol said. “I’m not certain how we’d be able to surprise them though.” Silence descended as they all contemplated their predicament.

“Someone could pretend to be a delivery boy?” Byeongkwan offered.

“What if they didn’t order delivery?” Jun countered.

The precog gave him a deadpan stare. “They’re a bunch of teenage boys stuck in a motel room with nothing to do and with bags of slowly spoiling groceries. Of course they’re going to order delivery.” Jun couldn’t really argue with that logic.

“Alright, who should we pick?” Jun sighed.

“Yuchan,” Byeongkwan and Daeyeol said at exactly the same time. They blinked at each other in surprise, but Daeyeol seemed to collect himself first.

“Yuchan has already managed to catch us off guard a few times,” Daeyeol said, smiling wryly. “I’m pretty sure NCT wouldn’t be expecting his ability.”

Byeongkwan nodded along. “It’s best since they most likely won’t catch a glimpse of his face after that, especially if we have him walk up in a delivery uniform. I mean, how often do you remember the face of the delivery guy?”

“We can also send Donghyun,” Daeyeol suggested. “He’d be strong and fast enough to grab the kid and make a run for it.”

“Alright,” Jun said. “I guess that’s a good a plan as any. Let’s start talking about what we do once Yuchan actually manages to get ahold of him.” Jun straightened up and took a step backward toward the couch to plan, when he realized he’d just stepped in a pile of Goldfish cracker crumbs. He winced. “Ew.”

“Ah, sorry about that,” Daeyeol said, not sounding sorry at all, “It’s usually cleaner, but somebody stole our Roomba.” Jun shut his mouth under the other’s pointed gaze and didn’t mention anything about the carpet again.

 

* * *

 

There was a knock on the motel door, and seven heads swiveled to look. Donghyuck was the one who got up first from their (admittedly boring) game of Go Fish after giving Jeno a questioning look.

“Not sure,” Jeno said. “He’s just thinking about the latest episode of some reality show.” Donghyuck rolled his eyes, not at all surprised by that. Jeno’s telepathy could be a bit of a crap shoot when it came to getting information.

“Why do we even keep you around?” he asked, causing Jeno to make a face while Chenle laughed.

“My stunning good looks,” he said drily.

“No, we would’ve kicked you out ages ago if that were the case,” Donghyuck replied. The knocking came again. He threw his hands up. “Fine! I’ll get it!” He trudged over to the door and looked out through the peephole. His view of the other person’s face was blocked by a black baseball cap. “Who is it?”

“Food delivery,” the person on the other side of the door said, lifting up a large black bag. Donghyuck nearly cheered with relief. It had been almost an hour since they’d ordered, and he was starving. “Food’s here!” he said, turning to the others. All of them visibly perked up at the announcement.

Donghyuck swung the door open. “Finally! You should have called though-“ The room was flooded with a bright light.

 

* * *

 

Jeno’s first thought, once he was set down and managed to blink the spots out of his eyes, was that he was in a vehicle, likely a van. It was cramped and dark and the seats had a rough, cheap upholstery. He imagined the windows in the back of the van were blacked out for anonymity. He tried to reach out to their minds, but found his head was still spinning too much for him to focus.

“Alright, tell us what you know,” someone in front of him said, clearly trying to sound intimidating but failing miserably. Jeno squinted through the darkness at the person. When his eyes managed to adjust, he could see it was just a boy only a few years older than him.

“Um,” Jeno stalled. “That’s a very vague statement. I know that giant isopods can typically be found anywhere between 300 and 7,080 feet below the water’s surface.”

“Whoa, really?” Another voice asked.

“Yeah,” Jeno nodded, “And they can go up to five years without food.”

“That sounds miserable.”

“Don’t encourage him!”

“Not that,” the boy in front of him said. “We’re talking about the explosives. Where are you hiding them?”

Jeno felt himself tense up. His eyes darted around looking for any chance of opening where he might be able to escape, but it was too dark to tell if there were any points of exit. He grit his teeth, ignoring his headache, and tried to reach out to his captors’ minds once again. Jeno paused.

“Nyan cat?” he asked disbelievingly, accidentally blurting out the other's thoughts. He froze, wondering if revealing his telepathy was a mistake.

“I didn’t know what else to use!” the boy defended. Jeno realized that he’d been kidnapped with his captors knowing full well of his abilities and how to combat them, the absolute worse case scenario. His fingers dug into the seat.

“That’s such an old meme though.” He said, stalling for time. Jeno looked to the person behind him. “And really? Girl’s Generation?”

The other bristled. “If you’re going to insult Girl’s Generation, then we’re going to have more problems than just finding those explosives.”

“We’re not getting anywhere with this guy,” one of them muttered, and Jeno felt his first shred of hope. Maybe if he kept being unhelpful they’d decide he wasn’t worth their time and drop him off somewhere where he could call the others.

“You’re right,” the person in front said. _Yes yes yes…_

“We’ll have to dump him back at our place.” Jeno’s heart dropped.

“Wait!” he spluttered. He moved to get up, but the boy in front of him placed a hand on Jeno’s chest to keep him immobilized. Though he at least wasn’t pushing down, Jeno knew he wouldn’t be moving any time soon. At that point he realized he had minimal chance of getting away himself until the others came to rescue him. He leaned back into the cushions as the van kept moving, resigned to listening to the Shakespearian monologue one of them had going on in their head.

 

* * *

 

Sanha looked up from the Roomba gently whirring in his lap as his cellphone vibrated on the tiny coffee table. He leaned forward carefully, trying not to dislodge the robot, and managed to snag his phone and settle back against the beat up couch. He frowned when he noticed the caller ID.

“Hyojin? What’s up?”

“Hey Sanha,” the ONF member replied. “I have some news.”

Sanha made a face. “Good news or bad news? Because I’m not sure how much more bad news I can handle right now.”

“A little of both?”

“Alright,” Sanha sighed.

“Well, you know how you sent the images of the explosives to us, right?” Hyojin asked. Sanha nodded before realizing the other couldn’t see him.

“Uh, right.”

“Well, those devices use a lot of fuel to power that level of an explosion, so we tried tracking down any large shipments of that kind of fuel in case it would give us any clue as to where the devices might be hidden or who else might be involved in this.”

“And what did you find?”

There was a pause. “Nothing.”

Sanha blinked. “Nothing?”

“Yup,” Hyojin popped the p. “No major shipments within the last six months of any fuel like that.”

“Could they get it from under the table sources?” Sanha asked.

“We thought about that too,” Hyojin said. “We contacted KNK about it, but they didn’t have anything either.”

“What does that mean for us then?”

“It means…” Hyojin began, “Most of those devices don’t have any fuel.” Sanha’s mouth dropped. “They’re duds. I could fire a party popper at a building and have a better chance of doing any real damage than any of those devices.”

“It’s all a bluff?” Sanha asked, barely believing what he was hearing.

“For the most part,” Hyojin confirmed. “We’ve discussed it, and what I think is going to happen is that a few of the devices are real. They’ll go off, and then EXO will swoop in to stop them and ‘miraculously’ save everyone from the rest of the bombs, which weren’t even a threat in the first place.”

Sanha leaned back against the couch, stunned. “Well. This changes everything.”

Hyojin hummed. “That being said, there are still explosives. Even if there are less than we’d thought, they could still cause some damage, and even casualties. Figure out where those are and we might be able to cut off the whole event.”

“How many do you think there are?”

“Given how small an amount there would have to be to slip by the records? I’d say no more than three explosives.” Sanha took a deep breath. Three. He could do that.

“Okay, thanks Hyojin,” he said.

“Yep. We’ll keep looking on our end to see if we can find anything,” Hyojin said, “Stay safe.” The call disconnected and Sanha shoved his phone back in his pocket, trying to absorb all the information that had been dumped on him.

The Roomba in his lap beeped questioningly, and Sanha placed a hand on it. “Three,” he muttered to himself, wishing the rest of his group was here. “I can find three.” He carefully set the Roomba on the ground, got to his feet, and retrieved his coat from the hook by the door to the apartment. The Roomba seemed to follow after him a bit. “Stay here,” Sanha ordered, wondering how he’d gotten so attached to the robot. “I have to go back to the restaurant.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m going to murder every single one of them,” Doyoung said, slowly crushing the stress ball in his hand. The ball bulged out in every direction before finally exploding from the telekinetic and physical pressure, sending sand flying everywhere. Mark held up his arm to shield his eyes, already too used to it. Doyoung made a sound of frustration and tossed the destroyed stress ball into a pile of other destroyed stress balls slowly building in a corner of the motel room before picking up another.

“I don’t even know where they took him,” Taeyong said despairingly. Though all the members had been shaken by Jeno’s kidnapping, Mark was most worried about their leader. Taeyong had taken the incident as a failure on his own part, and he’d been pale and shaky ever since. Jaehyun rubbed soothing circles on their leader’s back. The rest of Dream had been just as bad, and both Kun and Lucas were currently in their room trying to comfort them. It’d been hours since Jeno had been taken, and so far there were no demands that had been made of them and no response from their company on the incident.

‘Of all the times not to text back,’ Mark thought bitterly.

“Okay,” Jaehyun said, snapping Mark out of his dark thoughts, “let’s run through all the places they might have gone.” There was a brief silence.

“That doesn’t really work if we don’t even know who took him,” Donghyuck muttered. “We didn’t get a good look at their faces.” And it was true. They had no way of finding Jeno at this point. Mark’s gut churned, and his earlier thoughts of all their bad karma from killing Astro came back in full force.

Suddenly, a flyer was shoved under the door to their motel room, startling all of them. Jungwoo leapt back from the door, as if the paper might be a trap. After a few seconds of nothing happening, Jungwoo cautiously approached the paper. He picked it up gingerly with two fingers. “It’s a flyer,” he said, scanning the document. They all relaxed marginally, but that was a mistake when Jungwoo’s expression hardened. “It’s for Astro’s Burgers and Fries.” They all looked at the paper with disbelief. It featured Astro’s logo, along with a cartoon image of a burger and French fries with eyes announcing a special half off meal deal. 

Donghyuck broke the silence. “This is by far the weirdest way we’ve ever received a challenge.”

Taeyong got to his feet. “We know where to go now, though.”

 

* * *

 

_Earlier_

 

They were halfway back to A.C.E’s apartment, NCT’s mind reader in tow, when Byeongkwan received a text from Sanha. He checked the message at a red light. The actual text was brief, simply telling them to come to Astro’s Burgers and Fries, but Byeongkwan felt his stomach drop.

“He left the apartment,” he said quietly to Jun, who was sitting in the passenger side. His eyes jerked back to the road when a honk sounded behind him. The light had changed, so he passed the phone to Jun and put his foot back on the gas pedal.

“Sanha?” Jun blurted.

“Who’s Sanha?” Jeno asked.

“None of your business,” Yuchan said, trying to sound tough. Under any other circumstances Byeongkwan would have laughed at Yuchan’s faux tough guy attitude, but at the moment his stomach was twisting itself in knots. Had Sanha felt threatened in some way? Was their apartment unsafe? Byeongkwan wished he could pull over for a few seconds just to try and look into the future, but he didn’t know if the mind reader would be able to see whatever he saw.

“We’re making a detour,” Byeongkwan said, swerving to take a different exit than their original plan. Everyone in the back screamed as the car jerked. He looked in the mirror to see the other van full of the rest of his group and Golden Child swerve after them. “We’re going to Astro.”

Jun was looking over the message. “He didn’t say anything was wrong,” Jun said, trying to be positive. “Maybe it’s good news?”

Byeongkwan nodded. “I hope so.” Twenty tense minutes later, they were pulling back into the fast food restaurant’s parking lot. They all jumped out, Donghyun pulling the NCT member along. The other van pulled up next to them, and Sehyoon got out with a questioning expression.

“Did you get a text too?” Sehyoon asked. Byeongkwan nodded. He turned to the restaurant. “Let’s see what Sanha found.”

They all headed into the fast food place, looking almost comically grim for a bunch of teenagers headed into a burger joint. Some of the Golden Child members shot Jeno wary looks, but the NCT member didn’t seem like he was going to escape any time soon. If anything, he looked even more discouraged by how many people were surrounding him.

Astro’s Burgers and Fries was still abandoned, all the lights off and the floors unswept in the past few days that it had been closed. Sanha was already waiting at one of the tables, and they all squeezed into booths and seats around him. Byeongkwan drummed his fingers on the table nervously.

“What’s wrong?” Yuchan eventually asked, when the silence seemed to drag on.

Sanha bit his lip. “Hyojin and I found something,” he announced. He looked around at everyone, and Byeongkwan noticed Jeno stiffening in his seat. He clearly knew whatever was coming, probably pulling it from the Astro member’s mind. Sanha noticed the other’s tension too. “You’re the mind reader, right?”

Jeno nodded hesitantly. “I…”

“Then you know,” Sanha said. “You know that most of the explosives are fake.” Byeongkwan’s jaw dropped, and he heard gasps and noises of surprise around him. Jeno clenched his mouth shut and shook his head, refusing to confirm or deny, but didn’t meet Sanha’s gaze. That was confirmation enough for the rest of them.

“They’re fake?” Daeyeol asked. Murmurs started to pick up around the room.

Sanha nodded. “Hyojin did some research and found that there was no place around here that transported the amount of fuel necessary to power all those devices. It’s impossible for them to all be active. He estimated that only around three of them actually pose a threat.” Next to him, Byeongkwan could see Jun was stunned.

“So where are the real devices?” Donghun asked.

Sanha shrugged helplessly. “That’s the problem I’m facing. I came back here to see if I had any contacts I might be able to use, but Moonbin usually handled all of that.”

“Actually,” Sehyoon said slowly, “I think we might be able to help with that.” He looked at Jibeom, who frowned. 

“What?” Jibeom asked.

Sehyoon rolled his eyes. “Go get the bag of stuff we grabbed from NCT’s house.”

“All of that junk?” Jibeom’s brow furrowed. “Okay, it’s in the van.” Sehyoon tossed him the keys, and the boy ran outside.

In the meantime, they all turned back to Jeno, who had clammed up, and Sanha. “Look,” Sanha said to Jeno, “We just don’t want anyone to get hurt. It’ll be easier for all of us if you just tell us where the bombs are.” Jeno looked conflicted, but eventually just shook his head.

Sanha sighed. “I guess we’ll have to try our luck with the rest of NCT then.”

Donghun raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I invited them here,” Sanha revealed, “And we’re going to have a final confrontation, or at least half of us are. While some of us are distracting NCT here, the rest can go out and look for the bombs. There's no way whoever is behind this can start setting off the explosives if NCT isn't there to play the villain.”

Byeongkwan blinked. “You really want to have a brawl in your restaurant? No offense, but you don’t really look like you could take twenty one people in a fight.” He looked around at his group and Golden Child. “Honestly, I’m not sure if all of us put together could take on NCT, let alone half of us.”

“That’s why it won’t be just us,” Sanha said grimly. “It’s going to be a bit of a long shot, but I’m-“ Jibeom took that moment to return, pushing through the door with a heavy bag of electronics pulled over his shoulder.

“Got it!” he announced breathlessly. He struggled over to the tables and dropped the bag near Sehyoon. “It’s mostly junk though.” 

Sehyoon started to dig through the bag. “A-ha!” he pulled something out and placed it in front of Sanha. Byeongkwan gasped when he saw the alarm clock.

“Well,” Jun said, “That’ll help.”

“What?” Daeyeol asked, looking confused. “You took NCT’s clock?”

“It’s actually Astro’s clock,” Sehyoon explained without really explaining anything. Daeyeol blinked.

“It’s a really long story,” Yuchan said. Daeyeol opened his mouth to protest, but shook his head, evidently deciding it wasn’t worth it.

“But even with Astro, it’s going to be a hard,” Byeongkwan said. A part of him was thrilled that he’d be able to see JinJin and the rest of Astro again, they were a relatively strong group. But if the group had already been defeated once, in their own territory no less, he was worried about their chances in the future.

“This is going to make things a lot easier,” Sanha said, looking relieved. “I was originally going to try and bypass this and force my nightmares out, but now I won’t have to.”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘your nightmares’?” Yuchan asked. “Not Astro?”

Sanha looked at the other seriously. “I know that we won’t stand a chance against NCT. I know that not even Astro would be able to take them on. I have to bring my nightmares out. They’re the strongest dreams I have.”

“Can you control them?” Jun asked, looking concerned.

Sanha grimaced. “Only to a degree.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Donghun muttered. “How are we going to be safe?”

“The only way to stay safe,” Sanha said grimly, “Is to stay out of their way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haechan, flipping Astro's flyer over: "Wait a minute, there's a discount on milkshakes too!"
> 
> Mark, unimpressed: "They kidnapped Jeno."
> 
> Haechan: "Yeah, but we shouldn't blame their milkshakes for that."


	16. I'll Be Gone In a Day or Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, school's been crazy.
> 
> I call this the obligatory backstory chapter.

Astro’s Burgers & Fries was as innocent looking as any burger joint could be, Taeyong thought as he and his group rolled up slowly to the restaurant. The drive over hadn’t been very safe, Yuta insisting that they shut off their headlights so that Astro wouldn’t know when they arrived (he later admitted he had also done it just to be dramatic). While this may have worked in theory, it really just meant that they had all nearly crashed no less than five times on their half hour drive over. When they arrived Taeyong had to get a crowbar to pry Mark’s fingers off the armrest, where they had left deep impressions.

The lights in the restaurant were off, unsurprisingly. Taeyong doubted whoever had send them the challenge would be rolling out the welcome wagon. He jumped out of the black van and watched as the rest of his group got out of their (also black) vans. Taeyong surveyed the cliche with a frown. Maybe they were taking this villain role too seriously.

Pushing those thoughts aside for another day, he noticed his group was vibrating with a sort of nervous anticipation. Taeyong conducted a quick headcount to ensure that no one was missing. He had learned the hard way from past experiences that neglecting this step usually resulted in one or more members being left behind on missions or in the local supermarket. It happened so embarrassingly often that the front desk at the grocery store knew most of the younger members by name.

“Alright, listen up,” Taeyong said, putting on his best Leader Face, one that he’d practiced in the mirror for a good five hours, “We have no idea what might be waiting for us inside, so everyone stay on your toes. Our main objective is to get Jeno and get out as fast as we can so that we can start the mission.”

Jisung raised his hand.

“Yes?” Taeyong said, internally suppressing a long sigh.

“What if we’re told to start the mission while we’re in here?” Jisung asked.

Taeyong grimaced. That was the absolute worst case scenario. On the off chance that happened the group wouldn’t be close enough to the active bombs to set them off, and the entire mission would be delayed. He shuddered to think about how displeased his faceless superiors would be by any hitch in their plans.

“That’s just not going to happen,” Taeyong said firmly, sounding far more confident than he felt. “We can’t allow this to drag on any longer than absolutely necessary.” A few of the other members looked at each other with doubt, he saw Renjun mutter something to Jaemin, but he couldn’t focus on that right now. “Look, there’s twenty one of us. No matter what they’ve come up with, it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“Taeyong’s right,” Johnny said, stepping in to back the leader up. Taeyong could have cried from gratitude. “Think positive guys.”

“Oh, I’m positive, alright,” Renjun muttered, “Positive this is going to suck.” Chenle and Jaemin snickered. They shut up pretty fast when Taeyong narrowed his eyes at them, but he was privately just as uncertain. Though they’d headed over as fast as they could, there was no telling what might be waiting for them inside the restaurant.

“Alright, let’s go guys,” he said, turning to Astro’s Burgers & Fries. As if on cue the store came to life, neon lights flickering into existence and humming with energy. Meanwhile the inside lights lit up the surrounding area so much that it might as well have been broad daylight. Almost as an after thought, the buildings interior sound system also switched on playing Take On Me by a-ha.

“So much for no one knowing we’re coming,” Doyoung huffed, sideyeing Yuta. The latter smacked his shoulder in retaliation.

“Turning the headlights off works in the movies!” Yuta said.

“So do terrible relationships and self-destructive lifestyles,” Doyoung countered, “Hm, it’s almost like they’re unrealistic representations of life!”

“Hey!” Jaehyun said, stepping between them and shoving them apart before they started a fight in a fast food parking lot at some ungodly hour of the morning. “Doesn’t matter now! They know we’re here, so let’s just face the music!”

Haechan tilted his head as Morten Harket hit his iconic high note. “Well, at least we’ll be dying to a classic.”

 

* * *

 

After they had decided on their plan, half of Golden Child along with Donghun and Yuchan had taken Jeno to the back of the store where Astro usually held their mind wipes (or whatever other cult activities they might have practiced, honestly Jun was too afraid to ask). The rest of them, including Sanha, had ducked behind the counter at the front of the store where they were able to see all the entrances if they poked their head over the counter. 

They had waited in the darkness of the store for what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to an hour or so. Some of them grew bored after the initial tension wore off. Sehyoon and Byeongkwan had started to play rock-paper-scissors with Seungmin and Tag. Jun wasn’t sure at first if he should tell the Golden Child members that Byeongkwan had the ability to see the future, but they all seemed to be having a good time so Jun decided not to spoil their fun. Sanha was sitting alone near the deep fryers, focusing intently on the clock in front of him. It looked like he was pretty focused on whatever he was doing, none of them really knew what it took for him to unleash his nightmares, so he was given a wide berth.

Daeyeol had sat down next to Jun after a little while, both of them not quite sure what to say with the imminent threat of NCT approaching. Eventually, the other leader spoke.

“Hey, listen,” Daeyeol said, “I really don’t think you guys are all that bad.”

Jun raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I mean you all are criminals, don’t get me wrong,” Daeyeol said. “You robbed a grocery store, broke into our house, and pissed off one of the biggest names in the business. Honestly, I’m questioning your common sense a bit.”

“Thanks.”

“But!” Daeyeol continued, “I don’t think you guys ever did anything out of malice.” He looked toward the back room. “Jangjun even says we fought alongside you guys once.”

Jun startled at that. He tried to recall ever fighting with Golden Child, but all his team’s missions as heroes had started to blur together. It seemed like a time so far away. “When was that?”

“I think it was against a group called Stray Kids?” Daeyeol said, frowning off into the distance. “Or maybe it was The Boyz. I’m not sure, you’d have to ask Jangjun.” He met Jun’s eyes again. “Either way, I’m curious as to why you all decided to turn to a life of crime when you started out as heroes.”

Jun made a face. “Well, I doubt many people start out wanting to be villains.”

“KNK,” Daeyeol pointed out.

Jun nodded the point. “Okay, they’re the exception. But otherwise, from the few villains we’ve met so far, most of them seem to be criminals mainly because they need money. That’s the reason we decided on this.”

“Was your company struggling?” Daeyeol asked.

Jun sighed. “We didn’t even have one. We were shouldering all the costs ourselves. Any type of compensation we received for our work was barely enough to cover our living expenses.”

Daeyeol seemed to turn that over in his head for a minute. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jun asked, bewildered.

“Okay,” Daeyeol said, nodding, “I mean, this doesn’t make what you did any better, but I at least understand why you did it.”

The two leaders just regarded each other for a long minute. Jun wondered where he’d be if he and his group had decided not to become villains, if they had continued struggling along as heroes despite the challenges they’d faced. ‘Would he and Daeyeol be friends? Would they have been happier?’ He frowned. ‘Would they still have found out about NCT’s plans in time?’

“Would you ever go back to being heroes if you had the resources?” Daeyeol asked out of the blue. “Like if money weren’t a factor.”

Jun’s first instinct was to blurt ‘Of course!’ but he closed his mouth and gave the question a little more considerartion. When he was younger, he’d always admired the heroes he saw on television. He wanted to do that. He wanted to help people. 

He watched all the interviews and discussed what kind of hero he would be with his friends. He had been so excited when he was finally signed to a company the first time. Back then, Jun had thought nothing would stop him.

But then, reality set in. Years passed and Jun got older watching groups being formed around him at his company, with it becoming more and more clear that there was no way he was going to be put in one. Whenever he asked the managers, they would say he just wasn’t a good fit for any of their groups yet but to just hang in there. Eventually some opportunity would come around, they assured him.

As more time passed, Jun came to realize that there would be no opportunities coming for him here. As soon as his contract with the company was up for renewal, Jun left not any closer to achieving his dream of becoming a hero. He’d grown frustrated by his own inability to help others without a proper group. Creating a hero team without a company was near impossible. Jun had nearly given up and was starting to beef up his LinkedIn profile page in the meantime, resigning himself to getting another job.

It was a stroke of luck that he met Donghun one day when the other was in the middle of arguing with Jun’s neighbor in the middle of the street. Apparently Jun’s neighbor had been backing out of his driveway and run into Donghun’s car. His neighbor (who had been an absolute jerk any time Jun had the displeasure of interacting with him) was getting irate and blaming the whole incident on Donghun. Unsurprisingly, Donghun was not about to take that lying down and had started yelling back, and Jun meant **YELLING**.

Jun had been all but jolted off of his couch in his apartment as Donghun’s voice began shaking the building around him so much that the appliances on the kitchen counter rattled. At that moment, Jun’s dream of forming a team started to come back. He nearly broke his neck running down the stairs of his apartment building and burst out onto the street, startling both Donghun and his neighbor so much that they stopped arguing momentarily.

Jun’s timing certainly wasn’t the best when he asked Donghun if he’d ever considered being a hero. The other had ended up yelling at him as well while they all waited for the police to arrive. However, years at the hero company had at least taught Jun persistence (or as Donghun might refer to it, “being a stubborn shit”). After their initial unfortunate meeting, Jun seemed to be running into Donghun everywhere and eventually wore the other down to the point where Donghun agreed to get lunch with Jun and at least entertain the notion of joining a hero group.

During their talk Donghun had let it slip that he’d been at a hero company for a time too before leaving when he, like Jun, had realized they had no intention of ever putting him in a group. Donghun had gotten a job at cafe, effectively putting his childhood dream to rest. When Jun had first introduced the formation of their own group, Donghun had been skeptical. Solo or two person groups were rare at best, and independent ones were nearly unheard of. He had pointed out that they’d need at least two or three more members to be taken seriously by anyone, heroes and villains alike.

That had led to the two of them, mainly Jun, scouring the area for potential people to join their group. They’d found Byeongkwan and Sehyoon after a few months, the duo also running their own vigilante group, and the four of them had decided to join together. Yuchan had been another anomaly who had popped up when the younger had saved his class on a school trip from an attacking villain and been all over the news for a bit.

When the five of them had finally formed, it seemed like everything might be smooth sailing for a while. They’d gotten an apartment together for convenience and all pulled day jobs to supplement their superhero lives (the compensation from the various law enforcement offices was almost laughable). For a while, that worked out for them. But as even more days passed, it was becoming clear that even this wasn’t enough. Bills stacked up, and their superhero gigs left them exhausted when they went to work at their day jobs the following morning. This compounded on itself until the ultimate decision to become villains occured.

Despite all of that.

Jun still remembered what it was like to want to be a hero.

“If we had the ability,” Jun said, getting Daeyeol’s attention, “I mean, I can’t speak for the others, but I have a pretty good idea of what they’d say. I think,” he paused, “I think we’d all want to be heroes one more time.”

Daeyeol smiled. “That’s why I don’t think you guys are all that bad.”

Jun was about to reply when Sanha straightened up suddenly. The boy lifted himself up enough to see over the counter before dropping back down and clutching the alarm clock to his chest. “They’re here!” He hissed. Immediately, the store came to life. Jun was nearly blinded by the lights, much like if Yuchan had come out and shone his light right in face. For some reason Take On Me also started blaring from the speakers, breaking the silence that had enveloped them. 

Jun groaned and rubbed at his eyes as he heard equally pained noises from around him. Then Sanha’s words sank in and Jun was suddenly on full alert. The music faded to a dull buzz in the background as his heartbeat started to pound in his ears. He blinked the spots out of his eyes quickly and looked around at the others. They all looked just as on edge as he felt.

“What do you need us to do?” Byeongkwan asked Sanha.

Sanha bit his lip and pressed the top button of the alarm clock. “Stay out of sight. And, whatever you do, don’t look it in the eyes.”

“It?” Sehyoon asked, only to be answered by a loud earth shattering roar from somewhere over the counter. It grated on Jun’s ears like nails over a chalkboard and drowned out the tinny speakers. The floor shook as whatever creature Sanha had just unleashed took huge plodding steps around the restaurant, grunting and letting out short screeches all the while. The icing on the cake was how a foul smell filled the space as well, a combination of rotten eggs and the dumpster from behind the restaurant. Jun was briefly glad he’d been too nervous last night to eat much, because he was sure he’d have thrown it up.

Evidently someone else in the restaurant whose voice Jun didn’t recognize had a similar reaction, as there was a retching noise from over the counter. “Oh my god!” the voice exclaimed, “What the HELL is that?!”

 

* * *

 

 Being in a twenty one member group, Dongyoung had seen Some Shit. He’d witnessed Donghyuck lighting a trash can on fire (for no reason Dongyoung could determine), Hendery reaching through his body to grab the TV remote (something he’d like to never experience again for the rest of his natural life), and even Ten refusing to eat fruit like a normal person until Taeyong forced a lemon in the other’s mouth while screaming something about scurvy. Point is, Dongyoung had thought himself pretty equipped to deal with whatever hurdles life may throw at him. That was, until this moment.

“Oh my god!” Donghyuck screamed beside him, hand coming up to cover his nose, “What the HELL is that?!”

Dongyoung was inclined to agree because the thing in front of him was unlike any creature he’d ever seen before in his life, nature documentaries included. It was tall, at least eight feet in height, with gnarled brown cracked skin that was peeled away in some places to reveal a red stretch of muscle underneath. Its frame was skeletal, as if the creature had been starved for a while and was just really eager to have some food in it again. It had no eyes or nose, just deep sunken pits in its face, though it did possess a horrifying version of a mouth that was essentially just a cavern filled with teeth that Dongyoung would liken to the photos he’d seen of leeches or blood worms.

It also had wicked claws on its hands and feet that curved outward like a velociraptor, only it had five fingers and toes instead of three. It looked deceptively slow with its fragile frame and bulky claws, but Dongyoung had seen how fast it had moved when it took a swipe that had nearly rent Johnny’s intestines from their cavity. The abomination also had a tail line with jagged black spikes because, Dongyoung assumed, God had it out for him personally. As if that wasn’t enough, it smelled like a sewer system on a hot day that someone had dropped a bag of dog food down. All in all, Dongyoung could only classify such a creature as something from a horror movie that also crawled out of the pits of hell. Like every childhood monster-under-the-bed come to life. Like something that was absolutely going to feast on their entrails if they didn’t find a way to bring it down, and _fast_.

The beast roared again, setting all of their teeth on edge, before charging toward their group. Jungwoo barely managed to duck out of its way, the creature’s spiked tail missing his head by centimeters, as it spun back around. Dongyoung gathered his few remaining brain cells that hadn’t been killed off by the creature’s stench and tried to lift it with his telekinesis. The monster froze for a moment and rose a few inches in the air before crashing back down and somehow appearing even more pissed off though it had no expression that he could make out.

It took a swipe at Hendery, its claws phasing through the boy to leave deep gouges in the stuffing of the booth behind him. Hendery somehow screamed at a higher pitch than what was hit at that moment in Take On Me (which was STILL blasting over the speakers), which was an accomplishment in and of itself.  
Donghyuck lifted a chair, set it aflame, and hurled it at the creature’s head, only for that to be batted into the soda machine with a crash. Jaemin sputtered as he was hit in the face with a blast of Coke, only to dive to the side to avoid the monster’s talons. Mark rushed past the soda covered boy, this time picking up an entire booth and hurling it at the creature. The monster went down with a screech, pinned beneath the weight. 

For a second Dongyoung hoped that would be the end of it, but it seemed the monster had only been momentarily stunned, and it began struggling to get out from under the mess. All the while it was mostly unaffected by any of the attacks the others threw at it, their abilities bouncing off its skin. Dongyoung glanced at the counter to see one of the villains Bangtan had placed a bounty on pop over the counter, and grimace at the carnage.

“Don’t look it in the eyes!” another voice from behind the counter yelled before someone pulled the boy back down out of view. The monster finally managed to free itself from its prison at that moment, roaring in triumph.

Dongyoung frowned as Jaehyun’s force fields just barely managed to deflect the monster’s claws from taking Chenle’s head off. As far as he could tell, looking at the creature’s face, it had no eyes to be wary of. What had they meant?

He wasn’t given too long to ponder the comment as he used his telekinesis to yank Renjun out of the path of its spiked tail, and the two of them dove behind a table. He heard Taeil scream from somewhere to his left, followed by Taeyong jumping behind another booth to their right. The crashes were getting closer to their temporary hiding spot, and Dongyoung pushed Renjun behind him while trying to work out how he could get the other out of the building. This whole operation had been a mistake, they’d been foolish to underestimate Astro in the first place and run in without a plan. The only option was to retreat, regroup, and try and figure out another idea to rescue Jeno.

Dongyoung was snapped back to reality when the table above him was suddenly flung away, straight through the window above them, and Renjun and Dongyoung were showered with glass. In that moment, he came eye to eye with the monster. 

What he hadn’t noticed before in all of the chaos was that the monster’s eyes were set into the middle of its palms, terribly bloodshot with the pupils almost void black. Dongyoung’s own eyes were drawn to them, as if magnetized. Despite his internal screaming and urges to run, Dongyoung was frozen on the spot like a deer in headlights. He thought he heard someone yell his name, but all Dongyoung could focus on was the eye surrounded by claws rushing straight toward his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jangjun, from in the back: So what do you guys think is going on out there
> 
> Donghun: Probably nothing important
> 
> Mark, distantly: OH MY GOD WHY IS TAKE ON ME STILL PLAYING
> 
> Donghyuck, also distantly: BECAUSE IT'S A JAM
> 
> (Btw, the monster was inspired by leeches, blood worms and the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth which Sanha definitely watched by accident as a child and has haunted him ever since)


End file.
